Excel says "These characters (apostrophe) are formatting codes, which
may be displayed in documents created in Lotus 1-2-3 or if you are
working with keys that are used for navigation in Lotus 1-2-3."
And
"To hide the codes except label prefixes, click Options on the Tools
menu, click the Transition tab, and then clear the Transition
navigation keys check box"

Unchecking the Transition check box has no effect, although I don't
want to hide them, rather disable them. (No idea what a label prefix
is). The sheet was created in Excel, I don't have Lotus 1-2-3 or use
shortcut keys.

What's required is for the cell to display 'xyz', including
apostrophes. Entering this either in the formula bar, or the Cell, or
in VBA with 'Cell(x,y) =' results in the leading (prepended?)
apostrophe disappearing from the cell. It still shows in the formula
bar.

Entering two apostrophes goes some way to a fix, the first one
vanishes and the second one remains. But there's something intuitively
wrong when you have to enter a character twice, just to see it once.
Besides, there are some cells where a leading apostrophe DOES appear
in both the formula bar AND cell, but I can't see what's different
with them, or copy that formatting somewhere else. But it does prove
what I want, can be achieved - somehow.

Does anyone know what's going on, or alternately know somewhere else I
could ask?

Thanks - Kirk