Oohhhhh. I'd stay away from using the apostrophe for this.

I change = (equal sign) to $$$$$= (a nice unique string).

Gary''s Student wrote:

Prior to copy/paste, use find/replace to change all instances of = to '=
This will change all the formulae to text. Then copy/paste. Finally remove
all the '
--
Gary's Student

"excel _ help for the hopeless, please" wrote:

For reasons i won't go into, i have to transfer hundreds of cells from one
workbook to another. each one of these cells contains a formula

ex:
"=SUM(IF(Production!$I$2:$I$573="HM37",IF(Producti on!$H$2:$H$573="AP",IF(Production!$S$2:$S$573="36H ",IF(Production!$D$2:$D$573="X",Production!$Q$2:$Q $573,0))),0))-SUM(IF(Production!$I$2:$I$573="HM37",IF(Production !$H$2:$H$573="AP",IF(Production!$S$2:$S$573="36H", IF(Production!$E$2:$E$573="X",Production!$Q$2:$Q$5 73,0))),0))"

the new workbook is an identical copy of the old one, so the references to
sheet "Production!" will still apply.
i don't understand why when i select a cell from the old workbook, and copy
- paste it into a cell in the new workbook, why it doesn't transfer the
formula attached to it. instead it is only transferring the numerical value
in the cell.
this goes for all types of formulas i have tried to copy-paste so far. i
have tried several of the paste special options, but none have the desired
outcome.

if you could supply any help on this issue, i would greatly appreciate it.
thank you

--

Dave Peterson