Cells don't show any formula answers, they just display the formula text

[henway]

This is probably very basic. But any formula shows in the cell and displays nothing other than the formula itself. It's as if I had a ' in front of the = (I don't).
So it'll say =sum(a1:a4) instead of giving me the answer. Same with LEN and VLOOKUP.
I have cell formatting as General (I've tried changing to number and no change).
What am I missing?

 

[Weazel]

what happens if you hit Ctrl and ~ ?

 

[henway]

I tried ctrl~ both in-cell and on the sheet and no change.

 

[KenDue]

I have encountered this issue, also. If I remember correctly, it happened if I tried to copy a formula from one location and paste it into a new location. If I then TYPED the formula into a different location, it would work as desired. I never figured out what caused the problem, but that seemed to "unfreeze" Excel's treatment of the formula.

Good luck with finding a solution.

 

[henway]

If I use the "insert function" it will show within the helper box the answer to the LEN. Weird, doing the same thing twice, NOW it is displaying correctly. I copied that cell and then tried the VLOOKUP and it's not working correctly, but at least it's displaying #N/A instead of the entire text.... Rebooting computer.

 

[Helen66]

I have been having this same issue with Excel a lot lately. Today, what resolved it, was to save the workbook "macro-free". I hadn't set up any macros on it..but none the less. (FYI, the system asked me whether I wanted to proceed to save it macro-free as that format was not supported). Then when I went back in to the cell and repeated the formula it then showed an answer.
The problem repeated itself when I entered a new formula in a new cell, but was resolved by re-saving the workbook and re-entering the formula.
Very strange, but there you have it. I add this info in now (years later) in case someone else has the same issue in the future.