Formula showing instead of data

[Dan Wilson]

Good day. I have been using Excel for 20 years, but this one is strange. I recently updated to Excel 2016 on Windows 10 Home. I have a workbook that I added a new worksheet to that holds parameters that will change every year. the new worksheet is called Presets. One of the entries in Presets is to control the start of the year. There is a worksheet that calculates totals for the year called Totals. Since the year may be a fiscal year, namely December 1 through November 30, I am trying to control the display on the Totals worksheet. On the Totals worksheet there is a group of cells from D1 thru G14 that display the totals for each month. Row 1 is titles, rows 2 thru 13 are for each month and row 14 is totals for the year. Cell D2 on the totals worksheet shows "December 2017" with D3 showing "January 2018", and so on thru D13. Columns E thru G show totals for each month using Countif and Sumif functions. The start of the year is in the Presets worksheet Cell B10. When I enter the formula

=Concatenate ("December ",Presets!B10)

into Cell D2 on the Totals worksheet, the cell shows the formula instead of the result. I looked at the cell format, program Options, etc., but cannot make D2 show the results. If I enter the exact same formula in an unused Cell on the worksheet, it works. The Countif and Sumif formulas access data from another worksheet, so it doesn't appear to be an access problem. Any help will be appreciated. I'm hoping this is a bug in the Concatenate function, rather than something stupid on my part.
Thanks, Dan...

 

[JoeMo]

Possibly, the cell you are entering the formula in is formatted as Text. To change that:

1. Select the cell
2. On the ribbon go to Data>Text To Columns
3. On the first screen check Delimited
4. on the next screen uncheck all boxes
5. Click on Finish

 

[Dan Wilson]

Good day JoeMo. Thank you for responding. Your fix did cure the problem. I changed the format of the cells involved, but if I make any changes to the formula, it still comes up the same and I have to execute the the fix again. If I enter the formula in any unused cell, it works as it should. I don't understand.
Thanks, Dan...

 

[JoeMo]

You are welcome.

If the recurrence is confined to a single column, try deleting the entire column, format the new column a General and enter the formulas again.