In Excel trying to reference text that already is in other cells?

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G

Guest

Trying to re-display on one sheet, some text that already exists on another
sheet. Using the "=" sign and then clicking the worksheet and text I want to
reference does always work. Is this a bug in Excel 2002?
 
Hmm... if it *does* always work in XL02, it probably IS a bug... <g>

Assuming you mean "doesn't work", what do you see instead when you put
in the reference?

A reference to a cell will return the STORED value of the cell, not
necessarily the DISPLAYED value. For example, XL stores times as
fractional days, so if Sheet1!A1 contains 09:00, a reference to that
cell will return 0.375 (which can then be displayed as 09:00 if the
cell display format is set to Time).
 
You are correct, it does not always work. What I am trying to do is take the
text that is listed cells on one worksheet and display it on another
worksheet in a different table.
If I go into Sheet2!A1 and enter "=", then switch to Sheet1!A1 and hit
enter, sometimes I will get the text contents of Sheet1!A1 to display in
Sheet2!A1, but sometimes all I see in Sheet2!A1 is "=Sheet1!A1". Which is
the formula if you will that has been entered.
I passed this along to our accountant here at the office, who is our local
expert on XL, and he could not figure it out either. Sometimes it works on
some cells, and then not on others. We have checked formatting, sheet
execution, etc, and can't seem to find a pattern as when it will and won't.
All other math functions work fine, it is just this 'referencing of text' as
I call it.
Thanks for the reply.
 
You will see this when you enter the formula in a cell that's formatted
as Text.

Format it as General or a number format, and reenter the formula...
 
Thanks, that did it. What confused me was that you have to do the formatting
BEFORE you enter anything into the cell. Changing the format afterwards
won't fix the problem, but if you format first it does work.
Thanks.
BillR
 
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