Saved from a previous post.

Excel likes to help.

Try this on a test worksheet.
Select A1 and hit ctrl-; (to put the date in the cell)
now select B1 and type: =a1

Notice that excel changed the format of B1 to match the format in A1.

Now format D1 as Text.
put ASDF in D1
put =D1 in E1
You see ASDF.

With E1 selected, hit the F2 key and then enter (to pretend that you're changing
the formula).

Excel has "helped" you by changing that cell's format to text.

I don't know of any way of changing this behavior.

I just select the cell, and reformat it to General (or whatever I wanted). I
hit F2 and then enter (to reenter that formula).

Sometimes this feature is nice, sometimes it ain't.

JB25 wrote:

I am having a problem with an external link showing the path of the link
instead of the value. For example it shows ='[Sales
Forecast.xlsx]January'!A2. When I first create the link it shows the value,
but once I remove the absolute reference from the linked cell it shows the
path. This is only happening with one of my workbooks that I link to. All the
other workbooks I link to work just fine. How do I get this workbook to show
the value instead of the path?

--

Dave Peterson