Formula showing in cell, not returned value

[dgaller]

More and more I have been running into an issue when I put in put a formula in a cell (especially Vlookups) in a cell it just stays as an entry as if the equal sign wasn't there? Any idea as to be what is causing this? My most recent example is below.

=VLOOKUP(D279,'[Invoice Hx Macro -Ctrlr.xls]Acct_Descr'!$A$1:$B$119,2,False)

 

[Ziggy1]

I find this happens when you insert a column to the left of a column with Text format. The new column picks up the text format and then displays your formula as text.

what I do is click on the column where you are putting the formula, then go to Data menu > "Text to Columns", choose either option ( delim/fixed width) and then General data type and finish.

this should solve the problem for that column, I don't think you can get away from this happening, just something that Excel does.

 

[Brianwarnock]

I think that should be insert a column to the right as an inserted column defaults to the format of the column on the left, however when doing it manually you are prompted concerning the formatting.

Brian

 

[Darth Vodka]

More and more I have been running into an issue when I put in put a formula in a cell (especially Vlookups) in a cell it just stays as an entry as if the equal sign wasn't there? Any idea as to be what is causing this? My most recent example is below.

=VLOOKUP(D279,'[Invoice Hx Macro -Ctrlr.xls]Acct_Descr'!$A$1:$B$119,2,False)

aha, it maybe this old chestnut...

i used to get this every week and go mad

the problem stems from the fact that i used Control+Tab to toggle between workbooks all the time

and Control+` (the top left button, a funny apostrophe thing) is a short cut to toggling between displaying values and displaying formulae

or, you may just have it formatted to text before you type it in...