Why aren't formulas recognized

[BS]

We recently upgrade to Office 2007. I have used Office products since 1995
and am a developer.

Often when I enter a formula in a cell, say: =IF(ISNUMBER(G2),0,1), the
expression is treated as though it were a string. There is no leading quote
and no result.

what is up?

 

[Gary''s Student]

If you enter a formula in a cell and the formula appears in both the cell and
the formula bar, the usual cause is that the cell was formatted as Text
before the formula was entered. Clear the cell (both contents and format)
and then re-enter the formula.

 

[Mike H]

Hi,

Ensure the cell is formatted as general before you enter the formula

OR

Hold down CTRL and tap `

The ` symbol is generally found to the left of the 1 key

Mike

 

[BS]

That was about the second or third thing I tried. The cell was set to Text
while it was blank and I have heard that formats set on blank cells tend to
'stick' even though one changes the format.

regardless of whether the cell is formatted as text though, the '=' sign
should override that, right? At least it always has. It certainly seems odd
that anyone would consider the current state of affairs an improvment.

This seems like a very, very bad thing to do .

 

[BS]

This isn't a global issue. I was not aware of the CTRL- ` shortcut to show
formulas.

The cell was set to text before the formula was originally entered.
Subsequent resets to anything else are not working.

Again, why would any format change ignore the leading '='?

I am looking at tearing down this entire worksheet and starting over. Even
Visicalc did not have this problem.

 

[BS]

Well I'll be....

Put the cursor in the cell. Move focuse to the Formula box, move to the
first position (I see no quote/apostrophe) and press backspace.

Be sure to change pants after laughing so hard that you, well, you know.

 

[BS]

Now not so funny. I test to see if a value in cell is numeric. If cell is
formatted as text, no value is recognized as numeric. Setting cell to text
before entering data means I have to set each individual to numeric using the
Smart Tag on EACH INDIVIDUAL CELL.

MS should fire someone for this stupidity.

Please excuse the rudeness, but this has multiplied my work and is a stupid
freaking error.

 

[Gary''s Student]

AFAIK formatting an empty cell to Text, "sticks". That is, if you enter a
formula, Excel treats the formula as a text string, even though the "=" sign
is the first character. It has always been this way.

You need to ask yourself a deeper question:

Why are some of my "un-used" cells formatted as Text??

 

[Dan]

I can see how that would be pain.

Why not use the VALUE function???

=ISNUMBER(VALUE(D2))

Dan

 

[Bob Umlas]

No -- select ALL the "bad" cells, use Data/text to columns and just click
Finish. All the leading apostrophes are gone!
Bob Umlas
Excel MVP

 

[BS]

Thanks, I was looking for a NUM function.

Appreciated.

 

[BS]

I will have to try that. Of course, since there are no visible leading
apostrophes visible, it is not immediately apparent that something thinks
they are actually there.