If you enter a formula into cell defined as TEXT you literally get the
formula displayed e.g =SUM(A1:A10) will appear exactly as "=SUM(A1:A10)" .
Formatting as TEXT means anything entered is treated as TEXT, formulas or not.

If you change format to GENERAL, click F2 and then ENTER, it will perform as
expected.


"Rayo K" wrote:

Yesterday I encountered a problem with Excel formulas. Several cells began to
display the formula instead of the result on one of my spreadsheets.

My formula was simple: =$f$1

Instead of displaying the value of F1, it actually displays "=$F$1"

Reviewing the posts from yesterday, I count 4 people posting with the EXACT
SAME PROBLEM.

The symptoms are the same. Cells display the formula instead of the result.
NONE of the proposed solutions help.

I know most of the settings for Excel so I checked the obvious: Are cells
set to calculate automatically: YES. In the view settings are formulas
checked for display: NO. Is there a formula error that causes the formula to
be displayed (extra =): NO

Several people proposed checking whether the format was set to text:

FORMATTING AS TEXT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO DISPLAY FORMULAS!! Formatting as text
should display the formula RESULTS AS TEXT!

Why are so many people suddenly having this problem? Was there a recent
update to Excel that could affect this? Is there a coding error that somehow
was triggered by the date?

Is there anyone who can get to the bottom of this?