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#1
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Format for formula cells
Do the helpfile, tour, or knowledge base state anywhere that a cell has to be
formatted General before you enter a formula for it to work? Because I spent hours searching and trying different things today, before customer service told to me about this forum. It took me about three searches to find my answer: delete, format, re-enter. Voila! I couldn't believe that none of my searches from within Excel or on the Office website (formulas not working, formulas not displayed, formulas shown as text, worksheet not detecting formulas, format formula cell... ) mentioned the possibility. I've had the problem before without finding the answer. I thought at the time, that it was a result of some other problems on my old computer, especially when it went away later. I must have tried using a different area of the worksheet that I had not previously formatted. This time no matter where I tried I could not enter any new functions. I had selected the whole sheet and formatted it Text previously. I won't do that again. Maybe the requirement is stated somewhere already, but I believe it should be easier to find it when someone is having this problem. I think it should be stated in the Enter a Formula or Using Formulas pages. "Make sure the cells are formatted General before entering formulas." BTW, this community forum is Great! ---------------- This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then click "I Agree" in the message pane. http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...et.f unctions |
#2
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Format for formula cells
Not necessarily "General" ... but not "Text"
If the result of a formula is a number, you might want to format it to display the way you want. Similarly, dates and other values. Regards Trevor "tabbicat" wrote in message ... Do the helpfile, tour, or knowledge base state anywhere that a cell has to be formatted General before you enter a formula for it to work? Because I spent hours searching and trying different things today, before customer service told to me about this forum. It took me about three searches to find my answer: delete, format, re-enter. Voila! I couldn't believe that none of my searches from within Excel or on the Office website (formulas not working, formulas not displayed, formulas shown as text, worksheet not detecting formulas, format formula cell... ) mentioned the possibility. I've had the problem before without finding the answer. I thought at the time, that it was a result of some other problems on my old computer, especially when it went away later. I must have tried using a different area of the worksheet that I had not previously formatted. This time no matter where I tried I could not enter any new functions. I had selected the whole sheet and formatted it Text previously. I won't do that again. Maybe the requirement is stated somewhere already, but I believe it should be easier to find it when someone is having this problem. I think it should be stated in the Enter a Formula or Using Formulas pages. "Make sure the cells are formatted General before entering formulas." BTW, this community forum is Great! ---------------- This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then click "I Agree" in the message pane. http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...et.f unctions |
#3
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Format for formula cells
That makes sense. I still think that a search should turn up the not Text
warning. Thanks "Trevor Shuttleworth" wrote: Not necessarily "General" ... but not "Text" If the result of a formula is a number, you might want to format it to display the way you want. Similarly, dates and other values. Regards Trevor |
#4
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions
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Format for formula cells
It would seem, in my case, that simply formating the cell to "General" prior
to entering a Formula is not the answer!? I can do this all day long and any time the string of characters in the cell has changed the format reverts back to "Text". Whether it's user or macro interaction, it fails to retain the format required. This very frustrating and time consuming (plus it cost's mucho dollars to fix thousands of cells over and over). It's pretty much rendering my efforts to automate tasks as useless. -- Regards VBA.Noob.Confused XP Pro Office 2007 "tabbicat" wrote: That makes sense. I still think that a search should turn up the not Text warning. Thanks "Trevor Shuttleworth" wrote: Not necessarily "General" ... but not "Text" If the result of a formula is a number, you might want to format it to display the way you want. Similarly, dates and other values. Regards Trevor |
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