Hi Ray,
Make sure that automatic calculation is turned on
Tools, Options, Calculation (tab), calculation: [x] Automatic

You may have had a macro that terminated and did not turn
calculation back on. Provision should be made in a macro
to exit turning calculation back on or restoring to what it was
even upon abnormal termination. Also applies to addons.

Another possibility is that you have extra characters such
as space or nonbreaking space before or after the forumula.
Check that with =ISTEXT(a1)
Also see descriptions at the following and also the topic above
the following reference.
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#trimall

---
HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm

"Tweedy" wrote in message ...
JE,

I neglected to mention I've done that and to no avail. I select the range
and then format as general. Am I possibly ding that wrong? Possible I have
a virus of some sort?
--
Ray Tweedale
All-around-nice-guy


"JE McGimpsey" wrote:

Format your cells as General rather than Text before copying down.

In article ,
Tweedy wrote:

I have a workbook with 60 or so sheets. The first sheet is my "base sheet"
and data from the other 59 are summarized on the base sheet (ie all the names
, addresses, phone# etc)

I am manually selecting data for the first "base data" located at
=FirstDataSheet!$F$16 to base sheet cell A1 which yields "John Doe"
=FirstDataSheet!$F$17 to base sheet cell A2 which yields "123
Main" etc

I completed the first row and wanted to copy Row A to Rows B, C, D etc

When I drag and drop or copy and paste - the formula itself (text) is
placed in the copied to cell. ie instead of "Joe Blow" from the second
datasheet I get =FirstDataSheet!$F$16.

I've done this successfully in the past and don't understand why it fails me
now???
The cell that becomes "corrupted" remains like that and I cannot edit it to
fix it. I just end up with text of what I edited in. The only way to get it
to work correctly is to select the cell, type "=" and then select the cell
data I want from the proper data sheet which would take forever.

HELP !