How to Enter the Equal Sign in Excel without Triggering a Formula or Funtion

How to Enter the Equal Sign in Excel without Triggering a Formula or Funtion

If you want to start a string of content with the equal sign without triggering a formula, function, or cell reference the you need to insert a single quotation mark before the equal sign. Then when you press enter the single quotation mark will be hidden and the cell will only display the content without producing the result of a formula or function.

You could use this if you were wanting to display how you got to a result or if you wanted to show a formula, without acutally producing the result of the formula.

[aoiferibeiro]

Thank you! This problem was driving me crazy!!!!

[CreationCraters]

Awesome, thank you very much for the conciseness and clarity! I'm sorry to follow this up with a weird and probably annoying question- but does anyone know what to do if you wanted even that apostrophe included in the "shown" content? I guess in my very specific scenario I'm trying to be able to type anything I want into cells without any limitations to what's available to me. Thanks!

[TimothyHodsdon-rc]

great help! thank you - also works with Google sheets :-)

[HugoLeonard-horf]

How do I make it green if it’s equal to that number