Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software is perhaps one of the most useful tools launched by any company in the history of modern computing. Daily, millions of people use Excel to do a plethora of tasks, ranging from the simple ones like maintaining invoices or journal entries to advanced data analysis and processing based on formulas. Excel formulas are the key in the data processing. There are, however, some hiccups and glitches that keep plaguing work cycle in Excel. One such problem is reported by a lot of users in which cells do not update automatically. When you apply a formula to a cell in Excel, it automatically updates the values when you click out of the cell after entering a value. For example, if I have a cell in which I count the average of the numbers in other cells, the final answer (average) is automatically updated and written in the cell when I click out of it. But sometimes values are not updated in a cell. You can, however, fix cells not updating or excel formulas not updating very easily using a lot of ways. We will talk about the best fixes to this problem. Let’s get started.
Excel Cells Not Updating, Formulas not Updating
Change Setting
Sometimes, the calculation is configured to “manual” and this is the primary cause of cells not updating in excel. You can change this setting and fix the problem.
Launch Excel and go to Tools and then head over to Options. From here, go to Calculation and then select “Automatic”. This is for the early versions of Excel. In 2007 version and above, you can just click on the big office button and then go to “Excel Options” and move over to the “Formulas”. Then go to “Workbook Calculation” and set it to “automatic”.
No matter what version are you using, there will always be an option in the formulas or calculation area where you can make the update cell to automatic.
for Mac
If you are a Mac user, you can go to “Preferences” and then select the cell update to automatic.
Keyboard Shortcut
Here is a great tip: if you want to keep the formulas update to manual for any reason or the update cell is already automatic and the cell is still not updating in excel, you can just use the “F9” key to update the cell. So every time you write the value and want to update the cell, instead of wasting time on clicking and doing things through mouse, just hit F9 once and cell in excel will be updated. Or you can use CTRL+F9 key shortcut in some cases.
There is always a format type of every cell in Excel. If cell is not updating in excel, change its format type to “general” from “text” and then reapply and re-enter the formula again. You will see that cell will start updating.
This is how to fix cells, formulas not updating in Excel. If you have any question about this or in case your problem is still not resolve, comment on this post and we will get back to you.