Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Activating the Formula Bar with the Keyboard.

Activating the Formula Bar with the Keyboard

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 26, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365


1

The Formula bar, just above the work area in Excel, shows the formula or value in the currently selected cell. You can click on the formula bar to edit information within a cell, if desired. What if you want to activate the Formula bar by using the keyboard, however?

The quickest way to do this is simply to press F2. This tells Excel that you want to edit the contents of a cell. When you press F2, it is highly possible that Excel will simply expand the information in the cell and allow you to edit the information directly in the cell itself. If you don't like this behavior, but instead want F2 to activate the Formula bar, follow these steps:

  1. Display the Excel Options dialog box. (In Excel 2007 click the Office button and then click Excel Options. In Excel 2010 and later versions, display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
  2. Click the Advanced option at the left of the dialog box. (See Figure 1.)
  3. Figure 1. The advanced options in the Excel Options dialog box.

  4. Make sure the Allow Editing Directly In Cell check box is cleared.
  5. Click on OK.

Now, whenever you press F2, the Formula bar is selected and you can edit the formula there using the normal editing keys. For instance, when you press F2, the insertion point will be at the end of whatever is shown in the Formula bar and you can use the arrow keys to move around. If you press Home, you'll go to the left side of whatever is in the Formula bar.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6174) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Activating the Formula Bar with the Keyboard.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Calculating a Future Date

Need to figure out a date a certain number of days, weeks, months, or years in the future? It's easy to do using the ...

Discover More

Doing Math Using Roman Numerals

Excel allows you to place Roman numerals in your cells, as well as to convert to and from Roman numerals. In this tip you ...

Discover More

Placing Many Graphics in a Document

Word documents can contain more than just text. You can even create documents that contain almost no text at all. This ...

Discover More

Solve Real Business Problems Master business modeling and analysis techniques with Excel and transform data into bottom-line results. This hands-on, scenario-focused guide shows you how to use the latest Excel tools to integrate data from multiple tables. Check out Microsoft Excel Data Analysis and Business Modeling today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Identifying Missing Numbers in a Consecutive Series

If you have a series of consecutive numbers in a column, you may want to know if it really is consecutive. (In other ...

Discover More

Randomly Assigning Names to Items

If you need to randomly match up items in two lists, there are a variety of techniques you can use. Here are a couple of ...

Discover More

Deleting Duplicate Text Values

Got a list of data from which you want to delete duplicates? There are a couple of techniques you can use to get rid of ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is three more than 1?

2022-11-26 10:06:09

J. Woolley

For more on this subject, see https://excelribbon.tips.net/T012003_Editing_Individual_Cells.html


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.