I am finding Excel 2003 a absolute nightmare to use. IMO it has been changed
to the point of unusability in some respects.
However, I must move with the times. I have found some workarounds thanks to
the suggestions from this forum and I do like many of the features in 2003
but my current problem is driving me absolutely crazy.

I very frequently reference other cells, often cells which are in a Pivot
Table. To do this is Excell 97 or 2000 I would click the "=", then click the
cell i want to reference. The "=" has disappeared, replaced with the almost,
but not quite totally, useless, "fx" button. I now use a custom "=" insert
button, which works fine for me.
Anyway, Pivot tables have always been a problem to chart, you can't use the
data in a scatter plot, so I normally just reference the data in the PT in
the adjacant cells.
What Excel 2003 has done to me, (obviously a personal insult directed at me
specifically) has automatically replaced the A1 cell reference with a load of
unnecessary garbage, WHICH IS AN ABSOLUTE REFERENCE, completely negating the
shortcuts i am accustomed to using when dealing with large amounts of data.

For example, instead of click "=", Click cell (in a pivot table) G12,
<enter producing "=G1"
it produces this:
=GETPIVOTDATA("gm
x",$A$10,"xory","x","focus",9573,"zone",0,"col",1, "row",1,"xnom",6000,"ynom",6000)

An absolute reference, a load of unnecessary crap and basically unusable
when I want to build a formula from this as a starting point. Not only is it
an absolute reference (the $A$10 bit) but it is referencing the cell I
clicked as another, within function, undragable, locked to the text function
argument, cell of the pivot table.

I have to click "=", click and drag a vector , eg =G12:G14 and manually
remove the ":G14" part, in order to make it function "normally".
This has me on the verge of tears on the late nights when I am trying to
deal with the massive amounts of data I am trying to analyse before the
meeting at 9 the next morning...

The question: Can I turn off this automatic "GETPIVOTDATA" function
insertion when I simply want to reference a cell in a pivot table?

Thanks for your patience

Incoherent