Explode a cell's value and multiply together v

Question

I'm working on an invoice for the printing facility here at the school Im working at.

Im very close and almost got it working. Basically I have a list of values for papers sizes wich will can be selected in the cell from a list. If the selection matches any of the values the formula does the math for the paper area. But I want to be able to insert custom paper dimensions such as "24x19" and have the formula calculate that as well.

I tried just putting in a formula into the cell such as "24*19" but could get excel to actually do the mathematical operation - just return the value.

So I've gone on to trying to change the value of the cell by searching for all the characters on either side of 'x' and redeclaring its value like so:

D12=((LEFT(D12(SEARCH("x", D12, 1))))*((RIGHT(D12(SEARCH("x", D12, 1))))

But no dice there either, I just get "#VALUE!"

As a secondary question - Im also not please with the instance of OR I have below. Having to redeclare each instance of paper size is going to be hard to maintain - can this be simplified? I'm yearning for an ELSE! any help there would be appreciated.

=IF(D12="A5",14.8*21,IF(D12="A4", 21*29.7,IF(D12="A3",29.7*42,IF(D12="A33",32.9*48.3,IF(D12="A2",42*59.4, IF(D12="A1",59.4*84.1, IF(OR(D12<>"A5", D12<>"A4",D12<>"A3",D12<>"A3+",D12<>"A2",D12<>"A1"), D12=((LEFT(D12(SEARCH("x", D12, 1))))*((RIGHT(D12(SEARCH("x", D12, 1)))) )))))))

Thanks for your help and experience

Answer 1

Lets say you have '24x19' in cell number D12.

Put this following formula where you want the answer

=VALUE(LEFT(D12,FIND("x",D12)-1))*VALUE(RIGHT(D12,LEN(D12)-FIND("x",D12)))

Replace D12 everywhere in above formula with whatever cell you have