Why when I enter e.g. =B10 in a cell does Excel occasionally put =B10 into
the cell instead of the contents of B10?

Perhaps the cell is formatted as text.

--

HTH

Bob Phillips

(remove nothere from the email address if mailing direct)

"Paulymon" wrote in message
...
Why when I enter e.g. =B10 in a cell does Excel occasionally put =B10 into
the cell instead of the contents of B10?

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.

Paulymon wrote:

Why when I enter e.g. =B10 in a cell does Excel occasionally put =B10 into
the cell instead of the contents of B10?

--

Dave Peterson

Thanks to you both for the help, it was getting pretty frustrating especially
when I went back and reforatted the cell to general and the contents didn't
change to the calculation. I didn't know I then had to edit the cell
contents and hit enter again.

Thanks

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

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.

Paulymon wrote:

Why when I enter e.g. =B10 in a cell does Excel occasionally put =B10 into
the cell instead of the contents of B10?

--

Dave Peterson