Function is displayed as text rather than giving a value

[Guest]

Ever since our company switched to Office 2003 (about a year ago), I've been
having a problem when entering functions. They show as text in the cell
rather than giving me the answer/value [ex: =IF(BF2=S2," ","XXX")]. I then
end up having to do a text-to-column in order to fix before I can go on.

I read some of the other posts similar to this problem and the answers were
basically to change the format of the cell. Unfortunately, sometimes I need
the cell to be text.

After I text-to-column, if the value of the function should result in text
(like the above function - "XXX" is a text answer), the cell format is still
listed as "text" but I actually get the answer to the formula instead of the
written formula.

In some files I may need to do a number of different functions so this
process can become tedious.

We didn't have this problem before we switched to Office 2003 and not
everyone here is having the same problem. Is there some option box that needs
to be checked or unchecked, some setting that we should have customized?

No one has been able to figure this out for me. Can anyone here help?

Thank you!
Danni

 

[Guest]

Tools>Options>Calculation tab>Select Automatic

 

[Pete_UK]

If a cell is formatted as General, then Excel will work out for itself
an appropriate format for the value in the cell (though it doesn't
always get it right with numerical data). So, if your formula was in a
cell set to General then it would still show XXX if that was the
outcome - you do not need to have the cell formatted as Text.

It might be that Book.xlt on your PC has the cells formatted as Text,
whereas other PCs have a General format.

Hope this helps.

Pete