Sum a list of numbers

The real case

A column of amounts copied out of a bank statement or a chat, the hours on a timesheet, the weights of a shipment, a class's marks: numbers that arrive in a jumble and need an answer straight away. Opening a spreadsheet to add up twelve numbers takes longer than pasting them here, and adding them in your head is the classic way to get the last one wrong.

What comes out

Five numbers at once: sum, average, count, smallest and largest. The count is the most useful of the five and almost nobody looks at it: if you pasted eighteen lines and the count says seventeen, a number wasn't read, and you find out before trusting the sum.

How the numbers are read

Numbers are recognized inside the text, so you can paste what surrounds them too: words are ignored, and separate lines, spaces, commas and semicolons all work.

On separators the rule recognizes both the Italian and the English way: with two different separators the one grouping digits in threes marks the thousands (1.234,56 and 1,234.56 are both 1234.56); with only one that's the decimal (12,50 and 3.14); and commas that don't form groups of three stay separators between one number and the next. It's the part where mistakes are easiest, and that's why the count is worth a look before the sum.

Nearby tools

If all you need is the order, without the arithmetic, there is Sort numbers. For the average of a set of marks with credits there is Grade average, and to split an amount among several people Group expenses. If the numbers sit in a table inside a PDF, they go back into columns first with Extract tables from a PDF.