Exclude words from a formula

evening all.....

quick one for some brain box if i have the following:

=sum((B12+N12+Z12+AL12+AX12+BJ12+BV12)

but in N12 i have a letter or a word my value shows up ####

how can I get excel to exclude anything that is NOT a number in its workings

cheers in advance

Errrrrrrm, you wrote something wrong there, that formula returns error not because of text, but because of sintagma...

If you write

=B12+N12+Z12+AL12+AX12+BJ12+BV12

that indeed returns error if one of arguments is text; but if you write:

=sum(B12;N12;Z12;AL12;AX12;BJ12;BV12)

that will ignore any text in your cells, and sum up only numbers.

Please bear in mind: I separated arguments with semi-colon ( ; ), it's myh regional setting; if it doesn't work for you, you probably need to use colon instead ( , ).

I think you're aware that if your cells are adjacent, then you don't need to specify each one, but use range, for easier writing; for example =sum(C2:C15)