Tip #63 - Excel - Showing Formulas

100 Computer Tips in 100 Days

Tip #63 - Excel - Showing Formulas

When you are viewing an Excel worksheet, you are seeing the result of formulas in the cells, not the formulas themselves. To view a formula you need to click on a cell and look on the formula bar above the worksheet where the formula is displayed. But what if you need to look at a lot of formulas or you don’t know what cells the formulas are in, what’s your option? The answer’s simple. You can show all of the formulas with a simple keystroke.

Excel worksheet with formulas hidden

The same worksheet with the formulas showing

To view your formulas on your active worksheet, hold down the Ctrl/Command key and strike the tilde key (~) on your keyboard. The tilde key is below the esc key, to the left of the 1 key and above the Tab key.  Doing the same keyboard shortcut will display the formula results again, rather than the formulas.

The worksheet can be printed with the formulas showing, be aware that often you need to reset the column widths before printing

Now that you can see your formulas, you should use the formula auditing tools, described in this tip.

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Happy computing!

Diane

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