Cannot use Divide sign in Excel - Major Problem

[Launcher]

I am very familiar with Excel, however I have recently encountered a problem first on my laptop using XP, so upgraded to 2003, problem still occurs. this is also happening on my PC. If I press the divide key nothing happens, sometimes when I press other keys nothing happens. Sometimes if I press the tab key it moves through the menus. The equal sign will sometimes appear in a cell but not others. This is not the hardware. I have obviously pressed something on both keyboards for this to be happening - but what? I have tried pressing Alt etc no change. Any help really, really appreciated. I need to use Excel for training purposed in 8 hours time and this is driving me mad. Thank you

Launcher

 

[Artemus]

Go to Tools ... Options ... and select the Transitions tab. Make sure that Transition navigation keys is NOT checked.

 

[Barrie Davidson]

Have you checked under Tools|Options, the "Transition" tab? I'm wondering if something's checked there that shouldn't be. I checked my options and none of the boxes are checked.

 

[Launcher]

Thnaks for that. I have checked on both PC and Laptop none of the boxes are ticked in the Tools - Options - Transitions. I really have no idea what to look for next - PLEASE HELP!

Launcher

 

[Launcher]

I have just had another look at the Tools - Options - Transitions. None of the boxes were checked - definately. I have changed the menu key to an X and sure enough I couldn't type an X in. I have now removed it from the white text box and clicked OK and now it's working fine. Also on the PC exactly the same. Funny that this has happened with two versions of Excel on two machines - maybe a clitch in the system. Thanks for your help - it made me look at this bit again.

Thankfully

Launcher

 

[Barrie Davidson]

Sounds like the first character in the string you were entering in a cell was "/". If that is the case, you'd need to preceed it with an apostrophe ('). The backslash is the default way to access Excel's menu with the keyboard. I would put that back in the Transition tab of Tools|Options (so you can access the menus via keyboard) and just make sure you precede the backslash with an apostrophe.

So enter '/Barrie and not /Barrie.

Regards,