Display formulas instead of values

[Andrew Ofthesong]

Hi. I'm working on a sheet, and sometimes, after modyfing a formula in a
cell, excel (XP) displays me the formula instead of the result....

I have to close, reopen workbnook, or copy-paste form another formula to
solve this....

any ideas?

 

[Ron de Bruin]

I think you place a space before the = sign by accident
Excel think it is text now.

 

[Andrew Ofthesong]

Thanks... nop....

In fact, when this happens, i can press F2 on a working formula, press
ENTEr, and now i see it as tecxt...

 

[Dave Peterson]

Excel tries to help you.

Say A1 is formatted as text. You put a formula in B99 that reads =a1
Excel evaluates this correctly.

You select that cell (b99) and hit F2 (to edit it) and just hit enter.
Excel "helps" you by bringing the format of the referenced cell to the new
cell. (It makes it text, too!)

Reformat the cell as General, hit F2 and it'll reevaluate correctly.

Sometimes, this is useful behavior. If your formula refered to a cell that
contained a date, you may want 07/29/2003 instead of 37831.

(I don't mind xl helping with the date format, but I dislike xl helping with
text formats!)