B3 must be formatted as text. Change it to Comma or general, then past the
formula

Also, it may be that A3 is formatted as text and when you copy/paste you are
bringing the Text formatting along, so make sure A3 is something other than
text

" wrote:

I have 2 cells A1 and A2 with number 2 in each, in A3 i sum (a1*A2),
works great

i want to copy the formula to B3, and want excel to use B1 and B2...

when i paste it puts in the formula from A3 with the value of (A1*A2),
if I db click on the pasted formula, it fixes itself...

how do i get this to do this automatically..

(it works fine on a blank worksheet), but not on this existing
worksheet

thanks