You may have run into the issue where the Excel formulas are displayed in the cell instead of the result of the formulas. As you know, by default when you start the contents of a cell with an equal sign, Excel will treat the values entered into the cell as a formula, and will perform the calculation and show the result.
However, as mentioned, you may experience the issue where the formula doesn’t appear to be calculated, and instead is displayed as text in the cell. There could be a few reasons why this is so, and this post explains how to correct the issue where the Excel formulas are displayed in the cell.
Resolving Excel Formulas are Displayed in the Cell
Show Formulas Option
The first reason why the Excel formulas are displayed in the cell of your spreadsheet has to do with the “Show Formulas” option. In the latest version of Excel, there is a button in the “Formula Auditing” ribbon toolbar at the top called “Show Formulas”. By clicking this button you can either display or hide the formulas in the Excel cells of the spreadsheet.
The easiest way, however, to show or hide the formulas is to use the hot-key combination. Pressing CTRL+` (the backquote character that is beside the 1 key and below the Escape key) will hide and show the formulas in the cells as well.
Check the Data Type
The formulas of the Excel cells can also be displayed if the data type of the cell is set to “Text”. With this type, all values entered into the cell is treated as straight text, so the formulas won’t be calculated properly.
In order to fix this problem, you should format the cell to something other than the text data type, such as a “Number” or even keep it at the default of “General”. Once you do, the results of the formulas should be shown instead of the actual formula.
Excel Formulas are Displayed in the Cell – When the Above Doesn’t Work
If you have tried the above two solutions, and you still see a formula showing on the Excel spreadsheet, then the last option is to check the actual contents of the cell.Ensure that there is no additional character before the equal sign of the formula. The equal sign must be the first character within the contents of the cell. If there is another character, remove the character and you should then see the result of the formula.
The above options show you how to solve the issue when the Excel formulas are displayed in the cell.