Looking at the formulas you type into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet can help you troubleshoot issues that might arise if the formula isn’t working or if it’s showing an unexpected result.
But once the formula is working properly, you might want to see the formula result instead.
Our tutorial continues below with additional information about how to hide formulas in Excel 2013 if you want to see the results in your cells.
How to Change Whether or Not Excel Shows Formulas
- Open your spreadsheet.
- Select Formulas at the top of the window.
- Click the Show Formulas button.
Our guide continues below with additional information on how to hide formulas in Excel 2013, including pictures of these steps.
Formulas are one of the most useful features of Microsoft Excel, as it allows you to easily perform assorted operations on your data. Formulas can then be copied from single cells and applied to multiple cells, allowing you to quickly calculate a large number of mathematical operations that would take a long time to perform manually.
But you may notice that the cells in your Excel worksheet are displaying the formulas themselves instead of the results, which can be much less useful if you are more interested in the results of the formula calculation. Fortunately this is only occurring because a certain setting is enabled for that worksheet, and you can follow our guide below to turn it off.
Related: This where is the formula bar in Excel article can show you about another useful formula-related part of Microsoft excel.
How to Change Cell Display from Formulas to Answers in Excel 2013 (Guide with Pictures)
The steps in this guide will change the settings for a single worksheet that you are viewing in Microsoft Excel 2013 so that you see the result of a formula instead of the formula itself.
Depending upon how the worksheet was previously formatted, this could result in your column widths changing.
Step 1: Open your workbook in Microsoft Excel 2013.
Step 2: Click the Formulas tab at the top of the window.
Step 3: Click the Show Formulas button in the Formula Auditing section of the ribbon at the top of the window.
Now that you know how to hide formulas in Excel 2013, you will be able to toggle this setting on or off based on wether or not you want to view the formula structure or the value that the formula results in.
Cells containing formulas in the current worksheet should now be showing the results of the formulas instead of the formulas themselves.
Note that this is set on a per-worksheet basis, so you will also need to change this setting for other sheets in this workbook, or other worksheets in other workbooks that have this behavior.
If you instead wish to hide formulas in your worksheet so that no one is able to see them at all (such as in the Formula Bar above the worksheet) then you need to set the cell content as hidden and protect the worksheet so that no one can change that setting. This article from Microsoft explains the steps needed to complete the process.
Is the data in your spreadsheet difficult to read when you print it out? One way to improve the readability of a printed worksheet is to include the gridlines when you print. This will create a visual separation between your cells, allowing the reader to more easily distinguish where one piece of data ends and the next one begins.
Kermit Matthews is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with more than a decade of experience writing technology guides. He has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Computer Science and has spent much of his professional career in IT management.
He specializes in writing content about iPhones, Android devices, Microsoft Office, and many other popular applications and devices.