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excelexpressionworksheet

How do I force excel to display (potential) expressions as text, instead of attempt to evaluate them?

I've got an excel worksheet that contains as cell values stuff like this

=-L
=-N
=-R

etc

Now, excel sees the "=" character and attempts to evaluate the expression. It cannot, and displays the following instead.

#NAME?

I would like the actual string "=-L" to be displayed instead.

I attempted to highlight the entire column and do

right click --> format cells --> Text --> OK

But the column didn't automatically update. I still see

#NAME?

where I should now be seeing

=-L

Now... if I double click the cell and then navigate elsewhere, it looks like the text value that is being displayed updates. However, I want the entire workbook to update so that I don't need to go through the hundreds of cells double clicking. I tried

F9
Shift + F9
ctrl + alt + Shift + F9
ctrl + alt + F9

etc.

Is there a way this can be done?

Solution

  • Replace all. Replace = with '=.

    OR

    Under Formulas in the Ribbon, Under (technically over) Formula Auditing, select Show Formulas. This applies to the entire worksheet.