Function not evaluating

[DazzaData]

A colleague showed me this strange problem today

He had a vlookup function which instead of returning the answer insisted on
showing itself as text in the cell

so

=vlookup(a1,c1:d4,2,0) would insist on showing as just that

when it was copied and pasted into the cell editor box in another cell it
would work fine

all the other functions were working so the show formulas instead of results
setting was not the problem

Any ideas?
Cheers

 

[Niek Otten]

The cell was formatted as text when the formula was entered.
Just formatting as general or Number isn't enough: the formula has to be re-entered too (F2, ENTER)

--
Kind regards,

Niek Otten
Microsoft MVP - Excel

|A colleague showed me this strange problem today
|
| He had a vlookup function which instead of returning the answer insisted on
| showing itself as text in the cell
|
| so
|
| =vlookup(a1,c1:d4,2,0) would insist on showing as just that
|
| when it was copied and pasted into the cell editor box in another cell it
| would work fine
|
| all the other functions were working so the show formulas instead of results
| setting was not the problem
|
| Any ideas?
| Cheers
| --
| --------------------------------------------
| Please reward mine and others efforts - indicating whether our posts were
| helpful by clicking the buttons, ta

 

[T. Valko]

when it was copied and pasted into the cell editor box

Not sure what that is.

The cell is probably formatted as text. Select the formula cell, set the
format to GENERAL. Hit function key F2 then hit ENTER.