ClarisWorks 1.0: Var() Returning Negative Number or StDev() Returning #NUM! Error (SS,DB)

This information was provided by Claris Corporation on 16 March 1998, and incorporated into Apple Computer's Tech Info Library.
This issue is corrected in 1.0v3.

ClarisWorks cannot compute the Standard Deviation or Variance for a certain number of cells (population size). For example, a cell with the formula =Var(A1..A500) may return a negative number while the definition of variance prohibits negative numbers. Since Standard Deviation is defined as the square root of Variance and it's impossible to have a square root of a negative number, ClarisWorks will return #NUM! for a cell with the formula =StDev(A1..A500).

In this example, you can get around the issue by putting =A1^2 into cell B1, then selecting B1 to B500 and choosing Fill Down from the Calculate menu. This creates a range of numbers that are the square of your current data which can be used with the following formulas to derive the Variance or Standard Deviation.

Instead of Var(A1..A500) use:
=(1/(COUNT(A1..A500)-1))*(SUM(B1..B500)-((SUM(A1..A500)^2)/COUNT(A1..A500)))

Instead of StDev(A1..A500) use:
=SQRT((1/(COUNT(A1..A500)-1))*(SUM(B1..B500)-((SUM(A1..A500)^2)/COUNT(A1..A500))))
Published Date: Feb 18, 2012