Forum Discussion
Excel - Partial formatting of cell contents, such as text, works for some cells and not for others
I have a column that has the same exact formatting applied to its rows.
Within a single cell, I want to highlight some contents like important words.
Mysteriously, I'm able to do this on some cells, but not on others. I've tried many things, including:
(1): copied the formatting from the cells where formatting is working to cells where it is not. This works sometimes but not always
(2) deleted all contents and tried again...
I see that where I can do the underlining, the formatting options remain "clickable" in the toolbar, whileas in other cells they do not. Why is this the case? How can I make them "clickable" in all cells? Copy/pasting the format doesn't seem to fix this.
as JKPieterse noted, the difference in those 2 cells is that the one on the left that won't allow formatting in the cell is recognized by Excel as a formula because it starts with a "-". Any cell starting with "=", "+", "-" or "@" will be assumed to be and treated as a formula. If you don't want it to be a formula then start with an apostrophe (') which will not show but will tell excel to treat this cell as text. NOTE even if you set the cell to TEXT and then type those characters into the cell excel still think you are entering a formula even though after you hit enter it will be treated as text.
3 Replies
as JKPieterse noted, the difference in those 2 cells is that the one on the left that won't allow formatting in the cell is recognized by Excel as a formula because it starts with a "-". Any cell starting with "=", "+", "-" or "@" will be assumed to be and treated as a formula. If you don't want it to be a formula then start with an apostrophe (') which will not show but will tell excel to treat this cell as text. NOTE even if you set the cell to TEXT and then type those characters into the cell excel still think you are entering a formula even though after you hit enter it will be treated as text.
What happens if you type a single quote as the first character?
Thank you! Indeed that was the issue. Entering single quote fixes this
