Excel shows formulas, notthe value - why?

[Sherry]

I looked in Tools/options and under view I do not have formulas selected.
What else might cause this?

 

[Peo Sjoblom]

Text format in the cells with the formulas?

Select the cell with formulas, format as general under>format>cells>number

do edit>replace find what = replace with = (you replace an equal sign with
an equal sign, that usually forces
the formulas to calculate)

 

[Sherry]

Thanks but this isn't it. Tried that to a minute ago. I'm really puzzled. I
get the same problem on simple things like entering =a2 in cell a3. What
shows up is =a2

 

[Sherry]

Here's something that woks - can someone tell me why?
I change the format of the numbers I'm matching against to number from
general. Then I type over the number. and it works. Why?

 

[Dave Peterson]

If the cell got formatted as Text (format|cells|Number tab|Text), then you'll
see the formula, too.

It would be like entering a formula with a leading apostrophe '=a1
Excel will treat it like text.

And to make matters slightly worse, if A1 were formatted as text and you put =a1
in a cell formatted as General, you'll see the that formula evaluates
correctly.

But if you edit that formula (F2, enter is enough), then excel will think that
you want that formula cell to inherit the numberformat of the cell it's refering
to.

This is useful for things like dates, but not so useful for other things.

And the only way I know to fix it is:
format the cell as general, f2, enter

(or format the cells as general and follow Peo's tip if you have lots of them.)

 

[Sherry]

This works but why? I've tried several ways of cutting and pasting etc so
that I don't have to do the F2, Enter for every single cell. Is there a
better way? Even if there isn't thanks for making it work.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Select the range
Format as General
edit|replace
=
with
=

Usually works ok for me.

 

[Leo Delperdang]

Press "Ctrl" and the 'tilde' (~) key that is below the 'Esc' key. This key
combination will switch you into and out of formula display.

 

[Dave Peterson]

That's a good tip, but Sherry's problem wasn't that all the formulas were
showing--just a few. (And in her original post, she said she wasn't viewing
formulas.)

Press "Ctrl" and the 'tilde' (~) key that is below the 'Esc' key. This key
combination will switch you into and out of formula display.