Excel only allows one character per cell!

[Rick Walker]

I am a basic Mac-based Excel user producing budgets, cashflows etc, though we are cross platform at work. While working on budgets at home today I noticed that Excel had started displaying only one character (letter or numeral) in a cell. Any cell. Each character replaces the one before. I have tried in several spreadsheets (using cells well out of the way) and it does it in all of them. If I select an existing cell with text or longer numbers in them, it will paste the content into another cell, but then if I try to edit it deletes everything except the letter or number I just typed.
I am worried about copying the work I have done here over the weekend (quite a lot unfortunately) to the work computers as I normally would, in case I am also transmitting something nasty. Or have I just pressed a key combination which is particularly unhelpful?

 

[Jerry Sullivan]

Hi Rick and Welcome to the Board,

That does sound nasty. I'll put on a virtual HazMat suit and take a look at your file if you like.

Normally, I'd suggest some things for you to try to narrow down the problem.
However, it sounds like you're in a bad way and I'm less familiar with Mac, so I'll try to spare you the time required for the all the back and forth.

I'll send you a Private Message (PM) with my email address.

In keeping with the culture of the Board, I'll respond to you on this thread so others might join in or benefit from the discussion.

 

[Rick Walker]

I feel a fool.
Many thanks to Jerry for his reply and offer of help. I have explained to him that having done the obvious, ie backing up and shutting down, I then found that on re-opening the files the problem had disappeared. So there was a mysterious problem, but it has not proved fatal and I think it may be best to leave it be as there is nothing obvious to look at now...
Rick

 

[Jerry Sullivan]

No worries, Rick.
Glad you were able to recover. Let us know if the glitch reappears.