Formula (not results) displays in cell

Topic

New Reply

My colleague has a spreadsheet that he has used for years. Now he must use it in Excel 2007, and he’s getting very frustrated. For example—

In cell G45, he wants to display the sum of the numbers in cells G18 thru G44. In cell G45, he types =SUM(G18:G44), then hits Enter. G45 now displays the formula he just typed, not what he’d expect. What’s the fix?

Reply | Quote

Replies

If only this cell exhibits the problem, first make certain the cell is not formatted as text – right click it, select Format Cells, Number formats, and apply the appropriate number format.

Reply | Quote

My colleague has a spreadsheet that he has used for years. Now he must use it in Excel 2007, and he’s getting very frustrated. For example—

In cell G45, he wants to display the sum of the numbers in cells G18 thru G44. In cell G45, he types =SUM(G18:G44), then hits Enter. G45 now displays the formula he just typed, not what he’d expect. What’s the fix?

Two things to check before he gets too frustrated!.

On the Office button select ‘Excel Options’ , Advanced, and scroll down to Display Options for this worksheet. Make sure that the “Show formulas in cells instead of calculated results is unticked.

Secondly, before entering the formula in the cell, check what Format it is expecting (right click, Format Cells…). If it is Text, it will not calculate the results. Change the format to General and re-key the formula

Reply | Quote

Thank you! Thank you!

It appears the offending cell was formatted as text. I haven’t confirmed this (my colleague got called away in the meantime), but I’m betting that’s the problem.

Reply | Quote