When is an identical value not an identical value in Excel?
When a calculation goes wrong in your worksheet, it’s usually because of a faulty formula — so you spend seconds, minutes, or hours trying to correct it.
But sometimes the issue is actually with your data, even if it’s not apparent.
There are a few examples of identical values not behaving like identical values, such as:
- A number stored as text.
- A data type disguised as plain text.
- A text value with a sneaky non-breaking space (Unicode 160 instead of 32).
Excel’s error-checking feature is enabled by default, and it’ll flag certain things — like numbers stored as text or cells with formula errors. But it won’t catch everything, so it’s not something you can fully rely on.
