Cell only shows link in text, not contents of reference cell

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Some cells on the worksheet will show the information in the referenced cell.
Others only show the statement. For example, if I enter ='log'!K5, that's
exactly what appears in that cell, not the contents of the referenced cell.

John
 
Since you say that only *some* cells exhibit this problem, I would guess
that the "bad" cells were probably formatted as text,*before* you entered
the formulas.

If that's the case, you must change the formatting *and* re-register the
formula in order to obtain a valid XL formula.

Try this:
Select a "bad" cell,
Then
<Ctrl> <Shift> < ~ >
Then
<F2>
Then
<Enter>

What you did here, was
Keyboard shortcut to "General" format
Enter "Edit" mode
Re-register formula.

If you have a great many of these problem cells (formulas), you can select
them all,
Change the format en masse,
<Ctrl> <Shift> < ~ >

Re-register en masse using,
<Edit> <Replace>

Find what
=
Replace with
=
<Replace All>

--

HTH,

RD
=====================================================
Please keep all correspondence within the Group, so all may benefit!
=====================================================

Some cells on the worksheet will show the information in the referenced
cell.
Others only show the statement. For example, if I enter ='log'!K5, that's
exactly what appears in that cell, not the contents of the referenced cell.

John
 
Try hitting F2 then Enter.

Tools, Options, Calculation, calculation: automatic

Does F9 fix it
Does CTRL+ALT+F9 fix it
or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F9 for Excel 2002 will rebuild all dependency trees

check format of cells, if it is text that would do it
select cell, format, cells, (see what you have for format if not General)

If you have a space in front of = sign you will just see "formula"
check the length of cell again what you see =LEN(A1)
You might try TRIMALL macro in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm
which is useful for a lot of screwups, including
- changing between text and number or number and text without reentering,
- removing extraneous spaces or Char(160) which is the Required Blank or non-breaking space
especially if source was HTML which has &nbsp;
 
Good, of course knowing what the actual cause and solution was would
be even better feedback. But I know that each of the solutions have been
used to solve a similar sounding problem. Sometimes in telling what the cause
and solution turned out to be you get still more suggestions on avoiding the
problem in the first place.
 
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