I’m working on a Google Sheets formula and keep running into parsing errors. I have column A filled with either Y or N values, and I want column B to show the opposite value. So if A1 has Y, then B1 should display N, and vice versa. I’ve been trying different approaches but can’t seem to get the syntax right. Here’s what I’ve attempted so far:
=IF(A1="Y", "N", "Y")
The formula keeps throwing errors and I’m not sure what I’m missing. Any help would be appreciated!
Had this exact problem last week! My formula was fine, but the cells had weird formatting that messed things up. Select column A, go to Format > Clear Formatting, then paste your formula again. Also make sure you’re using straight quotes, not curly ones - happens all the time when you copy formulas from websites.
Your formula’s fine, but Google Sheets parsing errors usually come from locale mismatches. If you’re in a region using semicolons, try =IF(A1="Y"; "N"; "Y") instead. Also check if your Y and N values are actually text or from dropdown validation - I’ve seen validation rules mess with formula recognition. Quick test: manually type Y or N in a test cell and see if that fixes the parsing issue.
Your formula looks fine syntactically. I’ve used similar IF statements tons of times in Google Sheets without problems. The parsing error’s probably coming from something else - check if there are hidden characters in cell A1 or if the values aren’t actually ‘Y’ and ‘N’ as plain text. Sometimes imported data has extra spaces or formatting. Try using TRIM first like =IF(TRIM(A1)="Y", "N", "Y") to clean any whitespace. Also make sure you’re using standard double quotes, not smart quotes if you copied the formula from somewhere else. That’s caught me before.