The cells you are typing into are formatted as text. select the cells,
go to Format - Cells select General (or any non-text format)

Enter your formula and it should work.

if it doesn't, try this...
1) enter your formula
2) click on the cell containing the formula, go to format - cells -
select General (or any non-text format)
3) double click on your formula to edit it and hit enter.

On Jun 20, 8:37 am, PerryK wrote:
Occasionally when I type in a formula in Excel, instead of getting the
results, the formula just shows up instead.

As an example, if I type "=$A$2" and hit enter, instead of getting the
contents of what is in cell A2, I just see the formula "=$A$2" instead.

I do not understand what causes this to happen and have not been able to
find anything in the help files.

Thanks,
--
Perry K