Formala Leading Plus Sign "+" Behavior

[yellowizer]

I have not seen this behavior in Excel (2013) before, but was trying to trouble shoot how to turn it off.

The user entered a formula like this (without quotes) in a spreadsheet: "+180/90"

Excel then automatically converted the cell's formula to a value: "2"

However, when I try to duplicate the issue in a new spreadsheet I enter the formula as above. However Excel changes the formula to "=180/90" and displays the formulas result, "2".

I tried adjusting the Calculation options to manual and Advanced Lotus Compatibility Settings for the sheet (File-->Options-->Advanced) without success. I even looked in AutoCorrect and couldn't find anything.

Anyone ever experience this issue? Ideas on how to duplicate the behavior?

 

[yellowizer]

I apologize for the delay, but I was eventually able to duplicate the behavior in a fresh workbook. Enough time has gone by that I forget how it was exactly, but it had to do with the Advanced Lotus Comparability. I'll try to recreate the steps and put them here. The only thing I remember was that the settings I did, seemed to work opposite of what I was expecting.

To clarify, it was not an "F9" issue or workbook code.

I believe the workbook I originally saw this was created from an old Lotus workbook, but I was looking to recreate the behavior in a new Excel 2013 workbook. Again, I'll document my steps and post them here.

Thanks to all for your thoughts.

 

[yellowizer]

Just as a side note to this comment--I had recommended this to the user. However, the user comes from an accounting background and prefers to use the number pad vs. the top row keyboard numbers. Using the "+" sign was preferable to the user because of the speed of data entry. Since in most spreadsheets the formula entry of "+180/90" was automatically converted by excel to "=180/90" the user was frustrated by this behavior not occurring as she was expecting.

 

[yellowizer]

The issue appears to occur between formatting a cell as currency and whether the Advanced Lotus Compatibility Settings for the sheet (File-->Options-->Advanced) is toggled or not.

In a new spreadsheet, I changed a cell's formatting to currency, then entered "+80/2".

When Advanced Lotus Compatibility Settings for the sheet (File-->Options-->Advanced) is toggled off, the cell value will show "$40.00" and formula bar will display a value of "40".

However, when these settings are toggled on, the cell value will show "$40.00", but the formula bar will show "=80/2".

Specifically, I was toggling the check boxes for Transition Formula Evaluation and Transition Formula Entry. (I probably only needed to do one, but two is more than one.)

I did not test other number formats.

Thanks for the input and thoughts.

 

[joeu2004]

The issue appears to occur between formatting a cell as currency and whether the Advanced Lotus Compatibility Settings for the sheet (File-->Options-->Advanced) is toggled or not.

That is correct. Other custom formats, as well; but Currency and Accounting are the simplest. I had come to that conclusion a year ago or more, but forgot. I did post a link in some other recent discussion of a similar problem. But I cannot even find that today. Sigh.