MAX formula not reading the results of another formula

[Trey B]

In columns B through F, I have VLOOKUP formulas that access another page in the same workbook. I have tried MAX and MAXA formulas to populate the largest result in column G. The MAX/MAXA formulas only show the result of 0

example
cell B1 is VLOOKUP(A1,'TAB1'!A:C,3,0) which results in 100
cell C1 is VLOOKUP(A1,'TAB2'!A:C,3,0) which results in 120
cell D1 is VLOOKUP(A1,'TAB3'!A:C,3,0) which results in 90
cell E1 is VLOOKUP(A1,'TAB3'!A:C,3,0) which results in 130
cell F1 is VLOOKUP(A1,'TAB5'!A:C,3,0) which results in 150

my MAX formula in cell G1 is =MAX(B1:F1) which I figured would result in 150 but it actually results in 0 and that makes me cry

I have also tried =MAX(B1,C1,D1,E1,F1) and both ways using =MAXA. The fact that I am using this formula across several columns versus rows should not impact this should it?

I feel like this is so simple that I am missing something way to obvious to see, please help

[etaf]

can you load a sample sheet
that should work, if the vlookup is returning a number and not text
if text
ADD value()
Value(VLOOKUP(A1,'TAB1'!A:C,3,0))

is the number right or left justified - if left , then text , if right should be a number

[MrShorty]

A sample file may be necessary for us to help debug this. My only contribution at this point is that I can replicate this behavior of both the MAX() and MAXA() functions if I fill a range with "numbers stored as text". My guess is that these return values from your lookup table are not real numbers, but numbers stored as text. The solution will be to convert them to real numbers. I would probably do it in the lookup table using any of these strategies https://support.office.com/en-us/art...1-c5bad0f0a885

[Trey B]

etaf nailed it

I had all the cells center aligned and did not realize the cells were in a text format

Thank you

[etaf]

you are welcome