Once in a while everyone is bound to come across this problem. You type a formula in a cell, then you press ENTER. Bam! nothing happens. You check if a donut chunk went in to the key board and some how jammed the ENTER key. So press it again, this time harder. But nothing. Excel formula showing as text instead of actual result, like this:

Now what to do?

Of course, you can be careful when eating donuts. But careful donuts sure sounds like a paradox. So instead lets roll up our sleeves and find out the reason for this mishap.

The top reason for Excel formula showing as text :

You may have accidentally pressed CTRL+` [back quote symbol, the key below escape key in your keyboard] or activated the “Show Formulas” mode in Excel.

When you do it, excel shows the formulas instead of their results.

To fix this error and get back the values [or results] just press CTRL+` again or click on the “Show formulas button”

The next reason why formulas are shown as formulas:

You may have set the cell formatting to “Text” and then typed the formula in it.

When you set the cell formatting to “Text”, Excel treats the formula as text and shows it instead of evaluating it.

To fix this error, just select the cell, set its formatting to “General”. Now edit the formula and press enter. [Alternatively you can press F2 and then Enter after setting format to General].

The less probable reason why formulas are shown as formulas instead of values:

You may have accidentally typed a single quote ‘ before the = sign in the formula.

When you type single quote ‘ in a cell excel treats the cell contents as text and does not evaluate any formulas within.

To fix this error, just remove the single quote.

What is your experience with excel formula errors?

The very first time I pressed CTRL+` by accident, it nearly freaked me out. All the columns became too wide and the formatting went for a toss. Everything looked weird. It took me a while to figure out that I accidentally pressed the Show Formulas shortcut [CTRL+`]. I felt huge relief when I got the results back.

What about you? Did the formula error ever freaked you out? What other things about formulas worry you? Pls. share using comments.

More on Formula Debugging:

• Use F9 Key to Debug Portions of Formulas
• Excel Formula Errors – Understand and Fix them

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334 Responses to “Excel formula showing as text instead of actual result – How to fix the problem”

• mikii says: sometimes i get strange "not working formula" error - "show formulas" is turned off, there is no single quote before formula and the cell is formated as number. but it still shows formula instead of result. it happened some time ago on xl2003, i haven't run into this problem on xl2007. bet only thing that helped in that situation was deliting the cell and retyping formula somewhere else [or copy formula only as full copy reporuduced the same error also in the new cell]
• Jimmy says:

  Formula Values did not get updated in my excel sheet. Found out in formula tab in calculations there is an option to set calculate value manually or automatic.

  • You got it right, man! Thanks a lot for sharing what you have discovered. 🙂
    • Saibal says:

           Exactly !!!  
           Had got me go bonkers !!!  
           Thanks Buddy.. Still works.  
      

      • ronald says:

                      Why would any 1 convert the whole document to text GEEEEZZZZZZZZZZZ. The person is a Technical director and expects me to figure out why the formulas wont calculate ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG. THis Article helped wonderfully thanks Again for helping me to think properly again.  

      • ![][////i0.wp.com/secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8b317899adcdc53e28f758dfa2cc7acd?s=32&d=mm&r=g] Bertus says: Thanx a lot!! Works like a charm!!
  • ![][////i0.wp.com/secure.gravatar.com/avatar/581ebd9f42cf2afe7b0fe1d5aee26136?s=32&d=mm&r=g] Malcolm says: Awesome! Thanks so much.
  • Becca says: LIKE!
  • LAXMINARAYANA says: Thanks a lot Jimmy
  • Rahul says: Great Jimmy, i would have never found this myself. Thanks.
  • Thanks a lot. You saved me more than a few hours of aggravation with that little tip. For those really new to Excel, its is Formulas> Calculation Options> Automatic
  • P Murugan says: Thanks Buddy I was struggling for more than an hour, your suggestion saved me time. Thank you very much
• Steve says:

  Excellent thanks. I had the cell preset as text. Setting it to general didn't sort it at first, so re-entered the formula and problem solved. Thanks again.

  • Andrew says:

    I had the same thing. It was a lengthy formula so I copied it to a notepad page, changed the cell to "general" and then pasted it back in so I didn't have to retype the whole thing.

    • Bernadette says:

           Same here, thanks for the additional info - I had tried everything else, but with no change!  
      

      • Valeria says:

                      If any of the above is not working  

      • Make sure there are no circular references which are displayed at the bottom of the spreadsheet. This does not always work though.
      • Select all tabs in your workbook, go Home-->Find and Select-->Replace with [or hit Ctrl+H] and type “=” in both fields, hit Replace all. Step 2 SAVED us a lot of time. Not sure why it works but it does work. This was our last resort
  • ![][////i0.wp.com/secure.gravatar.com/avatar/893798c5314fc2cebb7c175f1d4be68c?s=32&d=mm&r=g] wizuurd says: If the cell is converted from Text to any other condition [e.g. General, Number, Percent], an easy [for me] alternative is: click at the end of the formula in the formula bar and hit enter. The cell then "accepts it's new format", and calculates the formula correctly.
• Kortnie says:

  I am only having issues with one spreadsheet. after copying and pasting a chart into another sheet and eliminating past month's data. Formulas stopped working. I was only getting the formula in the space after hitting enter. I followed the directions here and got everything set to "general", redid my formula, hit enter. and now it always says 0 instead. I went into a new spreadsheet and tried out an example of what I have been trying to do and the equation worked perfectly. So I am not entering the formula incorrectly. What else could it be?

  • Jan Martens says: Hi kortnie , i m facing the same issue. What solution did you finally get? I m watching allover the web and your post is the only resemblance to my problem.
• Elizabeth says: thank you
• Prabin Bhattarai says: Thanks a lot, your tip worked from me.
• Worked like a charm, thanks for the info !! I needed a leading 0 for serial numbers but all of my cells were formatted for text not custom number so formula was not working.
• larry w says: Nonf of your suggestions work on my Excel 10. So what really works all the time?
• When the problem is with cells formatted as text, I do a find and replace "=" with "=" [without the quotes]. mikii, I think your problem might have been related to an add-in.
• Rahul Goswami says:

  replacing = with = actually worked out for me ~Thanks Sebastien.

  • EMD1977 says: THANKYOU, saved me entering each cell and hitting enter for a range of over 1000 lines - life saver
• Johan says: Best tip ever - been sitting with this problem a number of times, and none of the more "rational" solutions worked. Now I am in a happy mood which will last for at least a day!
• Ahmad says: I tried the other suggestions. Replacing = with = helped. I feel relieved! Thanks.
• Greg says:

  WOW! Who'd have thunk it! Replacing = with = WORKED! Now, if we could figure out why!?! an entire spreadsheet was this way after importing data from CRM... Thanks for sharing, made my day!

  • @Greg The default character set in Windows has 4 characters that have twin parallel horizontal lines that look like = signs Only one of these is the = sign The others will simply be treated as text Simply select one of the bad ones Then do a Find & Replace for a normal = sign We get the same problem in the WordPress Posts here at Chandoo.org where from time to time the " characters are replaced by a similar looking set of characters rendering the formula useless
• Terry says: The global find & replace [Ctrl+ H] of = with = is truly BRILLIANT!!! Thanks to Sebastian and Valeria for this! the problem happens to me when I concatenate multiple source cells into long formulas to build complicated lookup-up tables and other worksheets where it's much easier to build dozens of complex formulas as text strings and then copy their values into the working sheet; doing the global search & replace of = for = [char[61]] "activates" all the formulas, which otherwise sit there in perfect syntax but recognized only as 'constants' by Excel. My old method was to "F2" & ENTER in every cell, one at a time; Ugh! Thanks, again!!
• Hans Poulsen says:

  Amazing. I was going absolutely NUTS and then - replacing = with = does the trick. Thanks!!!!! 🙂

  • AJ says: Agreed, not sure how or why it works but it sure does!! Thanks!
• Kevin says: Change the number format and don't panic.
• mikii says: tnx, Sebastien. It could explain such error. If it'll happen again, I'll check what add-ins are running 😉
• I have experienced the following weird behavior with SUM function... Imagine you have the following values on the column A 1 1 And you use the formula =SUM[A1:A2] And the result you get is 1 instead of 2. Then you use the following formula: =A1+A2 and you get 2 I figured out that one of the cells contained the number stored as text. I also figured out that the SUM function doesn't convert such numbers to text as the plain formula do. Try it by yourself. I wrote an article that summarizes the problems of the Excel Sum formula, it may help you to avoid those errors and more in the future. //www.excel-spreadsheet-authors.com/excel-sum-problems.html/
• Mel says: This happens to me when I've exported data and the format gets messed up. It thinks it's text, but just changing the cell format doesn't fix it. I have to go to an unformatted cell and paste special format to "reset" the cell. After that, the formula will work properly.
• Glenn says:

  I have the problem where I imported data from a tab delimited text file into Open Office Calc, and then saved the file and opened it up in Excel 2007. Some cells read as numbers and will sum up, but others don't read as numbers and I can't get a sum for them. The computer thinks they are text. I've tried copy/paste-special the format to number but that didn't fix it. Any suggestions?

  • @Glenn

    In a spare cell type the value 1 then copy the cell Select the columns with the numbers you want to check Paste Special Multiply Values Apply

    • Glenn says:

           How, Hui, that was spot-on. Thanks a lot!!!! [You're up pretty early, aren't you?]

• ![][////i0.wp.com/secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f72d3d531919fa8deecb7e3557d50e5f?s=32&d=mm&r=g] Amy says: Thank you so much for this fix. My issue was cells formatted as text.
• These tips really save me a HUGE amount of time. Thanks for sharing!!
• Chris says: THANK YOU.. I was going crazy. Half my formulas were working, the other half were showing the formula instead of the value. Silly excel.
• Roger C says: A related problem, the formula total does not update when a variable is changed. Problem: In Excel Options, Under Formulas, "Calculation options" has been turned to "Manual". Switch back to "Automaticl".
• sue says: Thank you that was driving me mad!
• Bluee says: This is the Best answer and solution, thank you
• G Kinal says: I imported an old XLS into Excel 2007 and the default condition was to show the formulas. WHY did MS make this SO OBSCURE ????? GK
• 2.00 0.00 =K1685*0/100 =K1685+M1685-L1685 this formula not working in my excell sheet model 2003
• TP says: Thank you so much!
• Chad says: I have been working on this practice assignment in Excel for an hour & just tried all the steps you suggested and it is STILL showing the formula in the cell and not the Value!!! Ready to pull my hair out...I have never used Excel & this class is a REQUIREMENT! No idea what is going on!!!!!@
• @Chad Is it just one cell or all cells? If it is all cells try Ctrl ~ Delete the cell contents and reenter the formula Make sure that you re-type the quote characters " if you have copied the formula off the net Make sure the first character is a = or a + character and not anything else including a space
• +1 My formulas are working now. My issue was the cell format being text instead of general.
• Pradeep says: I have a web application which allows user to donwload reports in excel 2003 format and 2007 format. Now when i test the applciation in my system which has office 2010, and open excel in 2003/2007 format, initially those cells which has formulas are not displayed. If i click the protection level alert, then they will be displayed. How to avoid this. Can any one suggest.
• Val says: Thank you! I was giving up on googling my stupid stupid excel problem [my columns had been set as text format and I didn't realize that...and I didn't know that formulas won't work on text formatted cells]...until this very straight forward post caught my eye and salvaged my sanity. Seriously, THANK YOU.
• Jim says: I have seen this problem before. Never fixed it, always inserted a new column copied from another location within the same sheet. However this time I changed the format of the cell to "General" and reentered the formula. That worked. Previously I would change the format to a number, which has never worked for me.
• Dave says: Thanks!! Simple problem but like a needle in a haystack if you don't know what it is. Cheers.
• matt says: What if I need it to be text? For example: 2-6 If I format anything other than text it tries to calculate 2 minus 6 or returns gibberish. I am currently adding ' before everything so I can keep it in general format and still have excel treat it as text. This is a tedious work around though.
• @Matt Enter it as text ie: '2-6 or Space 2-6
• Charlene says: What a relief! Thanks so much for the help!
• Kelly says: Roger C - you are my hero thank-you!!! I've had 2 giant spreadies which I thought needed to be rebuilt as the formuals had totally stopped. You have saved my day. Thanks
• Had same problem with Excel 2007, none of the issues above. It was resolved when I manually added the ' [text indicator], and then removed it again. Weird.
• Scarlette says: Thank you! I thought I was going insane. Very helpful info with clear, concise instructions.
• Arno says: Hi, I'm having a problem with my excel. When I press the function button a list appears and then I select a formula. For example, if I choose the IF function it pops up and usualy every argument has its own edit box where you tipe in the argument for logical test, true and false. Currently there is only one box to tipe in everything. Is there maybe a setting that I need to check/uncheck. I hope you understand my problem
• Tom McLaughlin says: Your "fix" was right on, my friend. Thanks.
• Ping says: My problem is the formula works fine at the beginning but the cell just shows up the formula after any edits made. I've tried any possible ways to find the reason or solve the problem but no luck. Any clue or suggenstion? Appreciated.
• Mieka says: I have a similar issue, with different symptoms. When I add a calculation ... nothing happens, it just displays as 0. I use this spreadsheet daily and this problem just seemed to come out of nowhere. An hour ago it was fine. What have I done?! I've checked everything: it's set to auto-calculate, the cell is set to 'accounting'. Help!
• @Mieka Do you have any messages in lower left corner of Excel Screen like Calculation or Circular Reference Error Anything else?
• olumide says: Came across your thread while looking for a solution to a similar problem - summations adding up to/displaying as 0 ...yes, i do see a circular reference error in the lower left corner of the Excel screen. Any suggestions?
• Mieka says: Wow! Thanks very much for your quick response! I will look at that for next time. For now, I tried restarting my computer, and lo and behold, everything is back to normal! Thanks very very much for replying! 🙂
• sathish says: Thanks a lot . Problem Solved 🙂
• JennyD says: I need this to be english. 1/2 the sheet looks like this!Help! jpSaí¾¤°S!Õ–¡
• @Jenny It looks like you've impoorted a Word or other binary document into Excel or vise-versa. Excel can only import Excel and a small list of other files. Make sure you select the correct file type. Also Excel 97-03 cannot import Excel 2007/10 files without a convertor, available from Microsoft.com
• yang says: Thank you for posting this seemingly "basic" excel problem! This problem drove me mad!
• dan says:

  If the formula is an equation [=] to another cell [for example to repeat a value in multiple work sheets] and that this source cell is a merge cell, it will display unpredictable results depending on the cell format. These include displaying the formula instead, or a zero, or a

  VALUE!.

  To fix this, either un-merge the source cell so your formula contains a single cell reference not a range, or simply Define a Name for the source cell and use this Name in the formula rather than the range.
• Benoy says: @Chandoo: I'm using an IF formula =ROUND[IF[AG3=0,0,[[AI3/AF3]*100]],2]. Cell AG3 has =IF[ISERROR[Query_Actual!K3/'No of proposals_Actual'!K3],"0",Query_Actual!K3/'No of proposals_Actual'!K3] formula in it. However, even if AG3 is 0, excel reads it as 'FALSE' and does the division! One more thing. The same formula works for other cells with only a 0 in it. But when the above said formula [in AG3] is referred it does not work. I'm sure this is some excel error because sometime back I had used the same formula and it used to work perfectly. It was in Excel 2007 and now I'm using 2010. Please help me with this. Thanks much.
• @Benoy In AG3 change ”0" to 0 . of course in 2010 you could just use the following in G3: \=IFERROR[Query_Actual!K3/No_of_proposals_Actual!K3,0]
• Benoy says: @Hui: Thanks a bunch. I should have realized "0" is a text and it should be 0 only..! The new IFERROR is too good. Otherwise the formula's ran pages!! Thanks again.
• Carolyn says: I am using a large spread sheet converted from an older excel program. I am calculating in 3 columns. Sometimes one of the two columns will have the same calculation in it and I noticed that the answer is different. I checked the cell formulas and they are the same. I have tried to cut and paste and it won't over ride what is in the cell and still calculates incorrectly. I was just upgraded to 2010 so am struggleing with the new options. What could this be? I checked and "set percision as displayed is NOT checked"
• @Carolyn Is calculation set to Automatic not Manual?
• Scott says: Thanks! The General / Text thing worked for me!!!
• Mike says: Maybe someone can help. I have the below formula \=IF[G4=A3,B3,IF[G4=A4,B4,IF[G4=A5,B5,IF[G4=A6,B6,IF[G4=A7,B7,IF[G4=A8,B8]]]]]] However, I also have a formula in cell in G4 which reads I4/F4. My result is showing False. If I just type in the result, and not have the I4/F4 formula it does the calculation. Hope I explained that well. I am confusing my self. Thanks for your help.
• peter says: Mike, Your inner most IF[G4=A8,B8] has only 2 arguments. If this is the intended purpose, then sorry I don't know. Otherwise, its possibly because when G4 doesn't equal A8, it returns FALSE. I guess it does the calculation [=A8] when you type in the result because the value type typed in G4 equals A8?
• Ajit says: How the problem solved. Problem: When I put the formula A1+1=2 [ If A1=1], But does not responding.It shows A1+1=1 instead of 2. Solution : Go to Formulas Where shows a calculate option and click on automatic as a first option. Regards Ajit Kumar
• FAraz says: Right Click> Paste Special > Values
• @Ajit Your formula should be \=A1+1 make sure A1 has 1 not '1 or space 1
• Okkitrooi says: Just to add to the pile, I have a list of codes, could be numeric, could be text. I want to do a lookup on them and use the TEXT[A1,0] function to make them all text. Most rows show me the correct value, some show me values that are totally unrelated. i.e.: A1 = '5-1800 A2 = '5-1900 Text[A1,0], gives me "5-1800" Text[A2,0], gives me "122" What am I doing wrong?
• @Okkitrooi . Excel is interpreting these as dates ie: '5-1900 is Tue 1 May 1900 it isn't doing that to '5-1800 as Excel dates start at 1 Jan 1900 Dates entered as text prior to 1/1/1900 aren't interpreted as dates . In regards to doing a lookup you can use a Match[] function to lookup Text and so should be able to work around this.
• Okkitrooi says: And all of a sudden the world was in balance again!!! Thank you sooooo much this would have taken me ages to figure out!
• Doug says: Thank you so much for this fix! I was getting really frustrated that my formulas we showing up instead of the value [obviously I couldn't figure out why it worked in some cells an not others]! You are a life saver!
• Terisanna says: Thank you so much, your site is now bookmarked. I spent three days and believe me I Wasn't Looking Forward to telling my boss that I couldn't get my spreadsheet to work properly. You saved my butt. THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
• jay says: this is probably a stupid question, but i'm new to working with excel 2010. what if i WANT the spreadsheet to show ONLY the formulas and not the answers? how do i do that and save it, and then send it to someone? i tried a couple of times, and every time i open the sheet back up, it doesn't show the formulas, only the answers. i only want the formulas to show. thanks.
• @Jay I use Excel 2010 and when I show Formulas using Ctrl ~ and save a file it opens with formulas showing as formulas . Can you instruct them to use Ctrl ~ after they open it to toggle between formulas and values
• ted says: In Excel 2007 my formulas are suddenly copying as values, not as appropriately offset-adjusted formulas. In other words, copying is now behaving just as if I if I had done the corresponding "Paste Special" and selected "Values", but I am using simple "Copy" + "Paste" [or, with the same wrong results, CTRL+c and CTRL+v]. This failure now occurs in entirely new spreadsheets [new workbooks, not just new worksheets], and not just in the worksheets where formula pasting was previously working normally. My next move is to OOCalc and/or to other machines, but I would appreciate any help. [I'm a programmer with 40+ years' experience, and this is going to bug me [maybe that's where the term "bug" comes from?] till I see it fixed.] Thanks in advance.
• ted says: Supplemental re "In Excel 2007 my formulas are suddenly copying as values..." I just noticed that if I do try to use “Paste Special”, now all the numerous usual choices are missing and I get the entirely different window on which the only choices are: "HTML" "Unicode Text" "Text" --or-- [when I just tried that again], just "Unicode Text" "Text" GROWL... I hope someone will point out that I'm just doing something entirely stupid [rather than discovering that my machine is now haunted by a particularly devious virus].
• ted says:

  Supplemental

  2 re “In Excel 2007 my formulas are suddenly copying as values…”.

  Copy just started working probperly in all my Excel instances [as far as I can see, at least], AND I MADE NO CHANGES ANYWHERE IN ANY OF THOSE INSTANCES, INCLUDING NOT IN "EXCEL OPTIONS". Somehow this is much more disturbing than a problem that persists consistently but is ultimately explained, even if that takes a long time. Maybe it was my mentioning OOCalc that did it.
• @Ted I'd be checking for - Viruses - Check the Excel Installation is sound and update if required - Check somebody hasn't played a prank on you
• Brownies says: Hey guys. How do you remove quotations when a function within a function when it returns a text. Here is my formula, =OFFSET[address[2, 6, 4, 1], MATCH[I5, F3:F17, 0], 1]. The 'address[2, 6, 4, 1] returns an "F2" in quotations and thus the whole formula will not calculate. I would really appreciate any help!
• Brownies

  I think the problem is that Address[] returns a String not an Address Simply adding an Indirect to your formula, fixed it.

  =OFFSET[INDIRECT[ADDRESS[2, 6, 4, 1]], MATCH[I5, F3:F17, 0], 1]
• polska says: cells formatted as text - thanks! i was about to jump out my basement window, could've hurt my shoulder or something...
• Brownies says: @Hui... Wow, thank you so much. I literally worked on it for hours and couldn't figure it out. Thanks again!
• Gaston AGON says: Excel 97-2003 to Excel 2010 migration problem: Hi all ! I'm sure that many of you has allready experienced the following problem : I have developped an application in Excel 97-2003 under windows XP using workbooks with a lot of formulas linking many of the workbooks. I'm now trying to migrate the application, thus the workbooks from Excel 97-2003 to Excel 2010 under windows 7. The procedure I'm using is to load the workbooks under Excel 2010 and "save as" them using the format option Excel 97-2003. But when I open the workbooks with the biggest number of formulas and links, I get the following message box and excel terminetes when I click on the single button [Close the Program] appearing on the window: "Microsoft Excel has stoped running A problem caused the stop of the program. Windows will close this program an tell you if a solution is avialable" Do some of you have an idea how to solve my problem? Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Gaston.
• DH says: Having some issues with my formulas--you know when you hit F2 to edit and excel shows the nice colored boxes around the cells used in the formula? You can generally click and drag them to change the range used in the formula; however, my excel application quit allowing that and now only shows the colored boxes but without any nibs [i.e. a solid box instead of a box with little squares]. Any help would be welcome! Using Excel 2007 and got nothing with google searching.
• @DH... I think you have accidentally disabled "fill handle" functionality. To re-enable it, 1. Goto Excel Options [from office button or file menu] 2. Goto Advanced 3. From Editing Options, check "Enable fill handle" option. 4. Click ok.
• cowboy joe says: I am using a quotient formula. I would like the result to display one [1] when the answer is zero [0].
• DH says: Thank you Chandoo! That was killing me. Thank you for your response--you're making me an even bigger fan than I was already.
• @Cowboy Joe

  You can apply a custom Number Format like: #,

  0;[Red]-#,

  0;[1]

  Note: that the cell still contains zero, but it displays [1]
• Anna says:

  Whenever I use a formula which includes a paste linked cell, I get an error message that says

  VALUE. I cant seem to carry out any sort of formatting on the paste linked cells or the original file from which I copied the cells eg. changing the currency from $ to euro etc. Help please! and thanks in advance 🙂

• @Anna

  I can't replicate this Does the cell which is linked to have an

  VALUE error ?

• Anna says:

  @Hui The

  VALUE error comes up when I use the paste linked cell in a formula.Example-I paste link the unit cost of an item from one Excel sheet to another and then multiply the paste linked cell with say..the number of items being sold in order to find the total cost. It is the cell where the total cost should have been shown that displays the

  VALUE error.

• @Anna I've never encountered this Can you email me the file ? Email is at bottom of page after you click my name
• Brownies says: Hi again, Got an interesting question. In a nut shell. I've extracted data from the web into a worksheet. I had to sort the data using formulas to extract things like the "mill" out of "125 mill" among others because it would be infeasible to manually do so. Then, I used a rather large offset function to extract certain type of values from my modified data like "Total Sales", "Yield", etc. That works fine, but when I create a chart from the offset function values nothing comes up. Is it at all possible to extract data into a chart from two separate formulas? Side note: There is all kinds of different data formats like percent, dollars, and regular numbers. Greatly appreciate any help.
• @Brownies Often numbers copied and pasted from web sites or linked to can appear as numbers but are in fact text Clean up all your numbers by using Trim and Search/Replace Spaces for nothing Then Copy a cell with 1.0 in it and Paste Special Mulitply values to all the number ranges This converts all the cells to numbers Apply a consistent number format to the cells as well If that doesn't help can you post or email your data to me
• LW says: Thank you so much!!!! I was having such a hard time with formulas showing as text. Now I know how to fix it.
• Brownies says: Wow thank you so much Hui. It amazes me how the simplest things fixes seemingly complicated problems.
• Ardneran says: Can i send my excel file to you for correction. if yes, please advise me via my email id.
• @Ardneran Click my Name, email is at bottom of page
• Pamela says: Hi There I consider myself a pretty good excel user and I have come across an issue that I can't figure out. I am linking 2 different files [both 2007] and the workbook that I am trying to establish a link does not recognize the "linkee" worksheet as something to link to. sorry, hard to explain. I simply want to have the contents of one cell link to another cell in a different work book. However, when I add the "+" and go to link, it doesn't recognize the cell as anything it can link to. I have tried changing all the cell format, the "allow link updates" in the security centre and have tried linking different cells and workbooks. Everything works as expected except for one source spreadsheet so that tells me its something to do with that spreadsheet. Any advice would be great.
• @Pamela Have both workbooks open before you start your formula When you start to construct your formula eg: =Sum[ At this point select View, Switch Workbooks Select the other workbook and navigate to the Sheet & Range Complete your formula.
• JK says: Oh my goodness -- thank you! This was driving me *insane*. But then...MS Office quirks often do, don't they? Thanks again!
• AK says:

  I m not able to in use formula =A1/A2 in excel 2010 it shows

  VALUE! error. i have checked cell formats they are in number formats. all other math operators[*,+,_] are working fine, problem only with / operator. an advice will be of great help. thanks in advance.

• @AK... What values are there in A1 and A2?
• iceman says: i am using excel 2010, copy the formula and returning value which is fine. however, when i press F2 [just try to edit the formula without changing anything] it shows the formula instead of 'value' i tried 'ctrl' '~', i tried 'show formula' --> doesn't work i tried replace "=" with "=", it's a temporary fixed, but still want to wonder why... anyone can help?
• AK says: @Chandoo.. any number say A1=25 and in A2=5. problem occures only with / operator others say +, - and * are working as expected. Regards, AK
• @AK Excel will happily perform maths on 2 numbers entered as text, even though it technically probably shouldn't. . 2 Questions? Are you using Excel or Open Office or something else? If Excel what version ? . Can you email me the file ? Email add is at bottom of page after click on Hui...
• catherine says: Hi, need help. I put in a password using the general options while saving my work sheet and after that i've noticed that the formulas on my worksheet is no longer working, I have a formula to compute average handling time and the sum and the average is not computing and that i need to manuall click on the function menu to compute each and is time consuming. I am using excel 2003. I am not sure if putting a password affected my work sheet or what, but I need to it to be back up and working the same way as it was. Thanks.
• @catherine The passwords should have no impact on the calculation of formula You may want to check if Calculation is set to Automatic or Manual Goto the Formula Toolbar and select the Calculation Tab, change to Automatic
• Hassan says: I am copying the formula from C17 to D17, as per excel rule it should update and it is updating the formula but showing the value of C17 instead of D17 unleass I press F2 and Enter key it is not updating the value. Can anybody help me out with this problem , why excel is behaving like this?
• @Hasan.. I think your formula calculation mode is set to Manual. You can change this to "Automatic" from Formula ribbon.
• sowmya r says: hi i need a if condition formula in Excel Sheet thanks
• KathyZ says: I think I have the reverse problem to the above example. Sometimes I will be typing a simple sum eg +2593/3 and although it return the correct answer 864.33 however the formula is no longer in the the cell so I can not adjust it. Can you help?
• ahmed says: Hi, I have a formula =if['a'!a1='b'!a1;"matching","notmatching"] and i have dragged it over 10,000 rows....now each of the rows will show "matching" or " not matcing" based on the comparison. If i have "not matching" in 8976th row....how would i know? Using Ctrl+f does not help.
• Monkfish says: THANK YOU! I really like you! You saved me! HUZZAH!!!!
• Swetha says: Am trying to use average function....but sumtimes it doesnt work...merging cells and trying to apply it....is it the reason?....plz sort it out
• Kunal says:

  I'm facing a issue- when I open a particular file I only see a

  Value error [cells in this file are linked to other files which are not on my system] . However, when my peers open the file they see the calculated values [without error]. I'm using 2010, my peers are using 2003/2007. If I set the calculation option to manual, I too am able to see the value correctly [however, others do not need to do this]. What's different in 2010 thats causing this? Can this be fixed?

  Appreciate any help! Thanks!
• Walter says: was set to Text.... never had that problem happen before.... Thanks!!!
• @Kunal Do you have the correct access to the network location where the file is stored ? Is it mapped correctly as say M: on their PC's but N: on yours ?
• Kunal says: @Hui, We [me and my colleagues] do not have access to the network location of the linked files- We are an Analytics team while the file comes from Finance, there's no way we can access those systems :]. Still, I do used to see the proper values in the file earlier. If I open the old files now it shows an error, however, I've used these files earlier without any issues. Also tried opening the files in other 'MSO 2010' systems, it does show an error, while anyone using 2003/2007 doesn't see these errors. Another thing, this started happening only in the last few days. All was working fine until, say, Nov end. I've checked the 'trust center' settings and everything looks normal. I wonder if any recent update to Office 2010 is causing this. Thanks, Kunal
• @Kunal I would still check to see if maybe you used to have a network access to accounts and now you don't or it has changed from Read Only to No Access or something similar. There is not any backward compatibility issues like this, that I am aware of within 2007/10.
• Kunal says: @Hui, thanks for your time on this! I'm sure about the network access- we certainly don't have access to it, unfortunately though! 🙂 [I've worked on these reports 'offline' quite a few number of times] Backward compatibility issues- Yeah, I too doubt that- just that I'm unable to find another reasoning, so, it came to my mind. I would post back if I find out something!
• sushil says: I have export my excel file from google docs when i open it formullas not working instead of a formula it shows Sheet=Sheet1Sheet5Sheet9Sheet6Sheet7Sheet0Sheet+Sheet2Sheet5Sheet1Sheet2Sheet6Sheet what to do please help me Thanks
• Emily says: Many thanks for your website--brilliant!
• na says: Hui, I've tried all your solutions to my formula showing problem with no success. I'm running 2003 and it is simple columns adding the numbers in the columns. Any chance I could send you my sheet and you might be able to sort it. There are only 7 columns. Thanks and great site. I too have bookmarked it. Nat
• @Nat Click on my name Hui to the left My email is at the bottom of the page
• Theaty says: Thanks for the help! This saved me some time digging around the subpar Microsoft help pages.
• dxb says: I have a 2010 spreadsheet that has 3 nested formulas and macros. The cells return a zero value on my pc. I tried the same file [no modifications]on four other pc's in the office and it works fine. I un-installed and re-installed excel and the problem persists. I compared most of the settings in 'options' with another pc and they look similar. I am really worried my reports are showing wrong figures!
• @DXB Check if you have Calculation Turned to Automatic Goto Formulas, Calculation Options Tab
• gary says: my auto sum is screwed up, when i total a column then cut and past the total cell to the next column, the sum is wrong, it is the sum from the cell i copied. Example: cell a11's formula is =sum[a1:a10] and the total is 20. In column b, the 10 numbers total 25. If copy a11 and paste into b11, the total will show 20 [a11's sum] even though the formula shows =sum[b1:b10]. its driving me crazy. please help
• @Gary... Welcome to chandoo.org and thanks for your comments. Can you check if your formula calculations are on "manual" mode? If so, change them to "Automatic". You can do this from Formula ribbon.
• Ayo says: great stuff
• Toby says: I've been dinged by having my cells formatted as text more than i care to admit. Thanks for the helpful post.
• CSM_Master says: Hi All, I was having issues with a Summary Report designed to compile individual summaries from a variety of scopes in one large project. I linked all the individual summary sheets into the Summary Report, placing each as its own table onto one sheet. Everything looked great until I tried to tally all the individual costing into an overall project total - only one of the sheets' values totalled correctly!! After much frustration and trying all of the examples listed here, I discovered a simple proble - the import turned all of the "$" signs from a text formatted condition into an actual cell entry. This cancelled out the number when I tried to SUM the values. I performed a simple "Find/Replace" command with nothing entered into the "Replace" field to get rid of all these symbols and all of my calculations work as they should. I didn't see this posted anywhere else on here, so thought I would add my discovery to this wealth of information. Regards
• Peter says: Life saver. Thanks.
• praveen says: A cell conatains date as mm/dd/yy and i need to change its format to mm/dd/yyyy. after changing the format the cell does not show the effect untill i press F2 and Enter key. i am using office 2010. can someone please help on this. i want the format change to take effect immediately. Thanks
• @Praveen

  When you say format I assume you mean the Custom Cell Format accessed by selecting cell and Ctrl 1 or Right Click Format Cells? Also check that you have calculation set to Automatic

  • praveen says:

    @Hui... yes you are right it is the cutom format set for the cell. calculation is set to automatic as well. i have tried almost all possible options, which could be set in Excel 2010 but nothing seems to be working. i really really need some solution!!!

    • Can you email me the file?
      • praveen says:

                      sure i can, whats your email id  

      • Click on my name its at the bottom of the page
• ![][////i0.wp.com/secure.gravatar.com/avatar/b0f42b6932e90b743f41378ca79b946c?s=32&d=mm&r=g] Nitin says: Start > Control Panel > Region and Language > Additional Settings > Change List Seperator Value to , instead of /. Click Apply > OK
• praveen says: @Hui Thanks, i have sent the mail with excel sheet
• * praveen says: Thanks Hui, I just finished trying few things related to that and it has solved my problems to a very large extent. Thanks a lot!! God Bless you...
• Sebastien says: Thank you so much ! This helped me quickly 😉
• Hey, just wanted to let you know this fixed my problem, never noticed the text drop down. Thanks awesome website for help.
• Trish says: Cell format was text, changed to General... Thank you very much!
• David says: Hi, i'm new new to exel and have an issue with some cells! I have a traffic light system were a formula is added to chage the colour depending on the date on the cell.The formula works great on 95% of the cells bar a few! Bit of a head scratcher ! I've checked the cell format and it's all ok ,I've pasted the formula on the cell but it does not change colour with the formula like the rest of the cells do. So any help would be great. Many thanks
• John says: These solutions don't work for my spreadsheet. changing format to general does nothing - still no calculation. there are no apostrophe's or spaces in the cells. When I enter =2+2, I only get the text, and not 4. Looks like I'll have to start from scratch....
• Shantanu says: Hi Guys, I need Help for excel 2010. I am importing some data from our official website. It is daily analysis sheet of our store. its shows all figures are in $ sign. by the way this data is get update in every 1 min as our store is busy. Now when i import data on my excel sheet it shows figure with $ sign [ $ 421.20]. but when I want to add two cell data [=A1+A2] it shows "# value Error". As i tried to change the format from "General" to "Currency" but as data get updated every 1 min that format get reset.... this problem just occurs in my laptop. on my office desktop [Office 2010] its work fine. on my colleague's laptop [Office 2003] its works fine. please help me .
• Kelly says: Thank you, very helpful
• Felipe Lugo says: U So Awesome! thanks
• I'm having a problem where my formula is showing a result of only 0 or 1, whereas the arguments box is showing the correct value. The formula is =SUM[--[K2:K500 Protection], the formulas, when edited, appear as text no matter the formatting of the cell is... Simple answer is: Remove the lock, edit the formula and then lock it again. At least, it worked for me... 🙂
• Helder says: Hi i have downloaded excel spreadsheets from the net, and now all my other excel docs do not use there formulas anymore, can anyone help me?
• brady says: Thanks... CTRL- ` is a killer! Thanks for the tip. It fixed my issue. I've never even heard of formula auding. I know it NOW>
• Joaquim Pires says: this post made more for world peace than any polititian ever 😉 THAAAAAAANK YOOOOUUU!
• Jennifer says: I tried so many things, made sure the cell was not set to text, copied the formula from another cell where it worked, thought I tried everything for the last couple of hours and then found your site. There was not a ` before the = sign, just a space. I backspaced in the formula bar to remove it, and the whole thing works again, yeah!! I can't figure out how it was adding the space, but that tiny space threw a money wrench into the formula big time. Thank you for helping me not pull my hair out [at least for today!], and for reminding me that most errors are operater errors and fixable.
• Patti Peets says: COUNTIFS['[Kept Appts Detail.xlsx]Page 1'!$B$5:$B$50000,">01/01/1900",'[Kept Appts Detail.xlsx]Page 1'!$B$5:$B$50000,"