Show Formulas In Excel

This page decribes how to show formulas in Excel, for a whole worksheet, or how to just display a formula in a single Excel cell.

Show All Formulas in a Spreadsheet

CTRL-` to show formulas in Excel

If you want to show the formulas in all of the cells in your spreadsheet, the easiest way to do this is through the keyboard shortcut:

Ctrl + `

I.e. press the Ctrl key and while holding this down, press the ` key.

Note that, on many keyboards, the ` key is at the top left of the keyboard, next to the number 1.

To hide the formulas again, simply repeat the same key combination (i.e. press Ctrl-`)

If you want to show a formula in a single Excel cell, you can do this by simply inserting an apostrophe at the start of the cell.

I.e. for a cell with the simple formula =TODAY() you would insert the apostrophe as follows:

'=TODAY()

This forces the cell to display the formula, rather than its result.