# My formulas stopped working in Excel.



## stiney (Jul 12, 2001)

Okay bear with me, I'm not very good with Excel, but the brainiac who wrote the spreadsheets I'm using has quit working for the company I work for and now I have nowhere to turn with these kinds of questions. 

So this spreadsheet was created in Visual Basic as far as I can tell and it has all sorts of little annoying quirks in it, but never anything I couldn't fix before. 

Until now. The formulas in the spreadsheet are right, should work, I input numbers in the proper cells and nothing happens. The formulas calculate nothing. And I did nothing to cause this to happen at all. I just turned on the computer one day and the spreadsheets decided it was time to stop working. I've tried rebuilding them, same problem. 

The only way the formulas will calculate my data is if I highlight the cell with the formula in it, go up to the Toolbar, and click on the checkmark button to confirm the formula. This works about 75% of the time. Sometimes nothing works. 

Any ideas on why suddenly out of the blue these spreadsheets would have a complete meltdown? I've even tried rebuilding entire sheets using an updated template of the spreadsheet and still have the same problem. 

Thanks for any suggestions.


Just some added info. This is Excel 2000 I'm using.


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## maxflia10 (Feb 25, 2003)

Have you checked to see if the calculations are set to manual?


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## stiney (Jul 12, 2001)

Where would I look to check that information? Sorry but my Excel education consists of one day of instruction by my boss who spent half the time on his cell phone, and one night reading an online tutorial I found on Google. 

Thanks, anything suggested I'll try when I go back to work on Thursday.


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## ddockstader (Oct 21, 2004)

Go to Tools > Options > Calculate tab and make sure the Automatic button is set.


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## stiney (Jul 12, 2001)

Alright, thanks I'll have a look tomorrow. I really hope it's that simple. It would make my month end a whole lot less painful.


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## SkyHi (Apr 29, 2005)

If that doesn't work, and it's not multiple sheets, or even if it is, just do one. But, you could post it here as an attachment and we could check it out, if you're able to do this.

-SkyHi


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## stiney (Jul 12, 2001)

That's alright, it worked. I'm still confused as to how this happened though. It wasn't every sheet, I have about 8 of them, and a few of them just randomly switched themselves to manual last month for no detectable reason whatsoever. And the strange thing is, when I rebuilt them from a blank template, the exact same spreadsheets that went to manual calculation on their own last month, went to manual calculation when I rebuilt them too. Ghost in the machine I guess. 

I was looking for bigger problems myself, as the spreadsheet is chock full of bugs and oftentimes I sit for hours trying to pinpoint where the formulas have gone wrong. 

Thankfully this time it was an easy fix. I wish I would have posted my question a month ago. Would have saved a few grey hairs. 

Thanks.


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## XL Guru (Aug 30, 2003)

>> I'm still confused as to how this happened though.

The mode of the first file you open in an Excel session will be picked up by any files you subsequently open in the same session. I think. 

HTH,
Andy


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## stiney (Jul 12, 2001)

That's really weird, cause that was about the 4th file I opened and all that came before were set to calculate automatically.


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