On Wednesday, October 29, 2014 7:49:05 PM UTC-7, Dreamspinnr wrote:
I have been working for hours in a spreadsheet of recording and
projecting financial performance of a company and suddenly the caret
symbol appears in the new cell every time I type the equal = sign, and I
am then unable to reference another cell or input a function. I can't
figure out how this must have been turned on or how to turn it off. I
can copy and paste functions starting with equal sign and then back into
the formula I want, but not start fresh. I also just discovered that the
caret mistakenly replaces the = sign everywhere I type it--even in a
comment box. I have used Excel for 30 yrs and never have seen this
before. How do I fix this?

This is strange. Two possibilities occur to me, but these are admittedly unlikely.

1. The keyboard is broken, or its software driver. This can be checked by typing with another program.

2. A bogus auto-correct entry got introduced somehow. With Excel 2010, these appear in
File Options Proofing AutoCorrect Options