VLOOKUP displays the formula instead of the result

shelley

New Member
Joined
May 13, 2003
Messages
20
My VLOOKUP formula is displaying in the cell instead of the result. The formula is VLOOKUP(A1, income_codes, 2, FALSE) and in the formula editor the result (00017) is calculated correctly.
However the cell displays =VLOOKUP(A1, income_codes, 2, FALSE) instead of the answer 00017.
My view options are not set to display formulas. The codes are formatted as text in the range income_codes as they start with zeros.

Any ideas?

:confused:
 

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press Alt + ` (tilde key, left of 1). does that help?
 
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neither of those things made a difference I'm afraid

if I try replacing the = with =. it says my formulas has an error.
 
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Hi Shelley:

If you are having difficulty with replacing = with =

let us try this. Select the cell, replace the = sign with #, and then
select the same cell again and replace # with =

Does it work for you?
 
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oops I'm with you now ....

it sort of works - the replace shows the result correctly until you click in the formula cell again and then the formula comes back.

I'll see what the user thinks.
 
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shelley said:
oops I'm with you now ....

it sort of works - the replace shows the result correctly until you click in the formula cell again and then the formula comes back.

I'll see what the user thinks.

You'll need to reformat that cell back to General. It's formatted as text. I'm guessing that the Vlookup returns a text value and thus Excel formats it as text. Then the next time you go in a enter a formula, Excel thinks it's still a text value.
 
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shelley said:
... until you click in the formula cell again and then the formula comes back.

I'll see what the user thinks.

You sure didn't double click in the formula cell, and therefore invoked edit mode? Is there a flashing | in the cell? Click or arrow out side the cell, and what happens?

Richard
 
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