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What makes Excel refuse to evaluate a formula, apparently at random? This happens to me in a variety of situations, with fairly simple formulas, quite often non-arithmetic ones. The formula will work fine in another book or sheet or even another column of the same sheet, yet the sheet is usually very homogenous, e.g., an address list or parts list. Today's stubborn formula is:
=IF(LEFT(G1,2)="S4",G1,"")
which works fine in one part of the sheet but just displays itself (the formula) if entered in another. The cells are all formatted as text and of course this is a text task, not a math task. If I enter the formula in a "good" column of the sheet, then *copy* it to an "evil" column and of course edit the G1 reference appropriately, it works. If I then copy it downward from there for several cells they all evaluate fine, but if I edit the IF match string "S4" in one of those cells, it goes back to displaying just the formula in that cell. Why?? At most the only differences between the two columns are font and color, and there's no difference at all among the cells in the same column.
It doesn’t happen only with =IFs. I’ve had =CONCATENATE formulas fail the same way, as well as random others.
If I'm missing something stupid, go ahead & call me stupid, but please tell me what it is!
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