The value in the cell has to be Text (not a real number, not a formula).

So preformat the cell as text and type 23 into that cell
(or add a leading apostrophe '23)
select the 3 in the formulabar
format|cells|check Superscript.

This won't make the value 8--it'll be just text that looks pretty.

This technique won't work with real numbers. If you really wanted it to
evaluate to 8, you could use:
=2^3

If you have lots of these to do...

Try John Walkenbach's addin:
http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/files/supersub.htm

Tanjia wrote:

I need to show exponents written numerically, like 2 to the 3rd power. Is
there any way to do this?

--

Dave Peterson