Good afternoon,

I am a teacher trying to figure out how to enter marks as both numerical values (e.g., 89%) and levels (e.g., A-).

Currently, my "markbook" has a worksheet on which I enter all of the students' marks and then excel transfers automatically those marks to the students' individual pages where the numbers are crunched and a final mark is calculated.

My school is moving to a system of marking in LEVELS. Just to complicate things (for Excel), these levels - which go from R (<50) to 5+ (98-100%) - are numeric levels. I know, though, that I can set the levels to be read as text.

I would like to set up my data entry worksheet so that I can indicate whether or not I will be marking in numbers or levels and then be able to enter the students number/level in one cell. I am trying to set up that cell to be able to recognize that the value I am entering will be a level (with data validation from a list) or a number.

So far, I have come up with the following formula for the Data Validation Window --> =IF($O$4,Levels,???????)

In cell O4, I have created a check box to indicate whether the assignment will be marked in levels or numbers. If the check box is checked, then the formula tells excel to create a drop-down list from a range I have labelled "Levels". This range includes a blank, R, 1-,1,1+,2-,2,2+,3-,3,3+,4-,4,4+,5-,5,5+.

My problem is that I do not know what to put at the end of this IF statement. I want to be able to enter any number I want (with decimals), from 0-200...and I would prefer not to create another range with each of the possibilities between 0 and 200.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am trying to do this without VBA, because it is far beyond my knowledge set.

Thank you, in advance.