Unwanted Strikethrough Formatting

Alan notes that when he enters a number using scientific notation in a formula, the result is numerically correct, but it is formatted with strikethrough applied and the strikethrough can't be removed with formatting tools. He wonders how he can get Excel not to apply the strikethrough formatting.

What is displayed in a cell is often the result of not just a formula, but also formatting that may have previously been applied to the cell. This means that it is very possible that the cell into which Alan is entering his formula was either previously formatted for strikethrough or it has a conditional format that utilizes strikethrough.

This can be easily checked. Before entering the formula, select the cell and then press Ctrl+Shift+F. Excel displays the Font dialog box, and you can check to see if the Strikethrough check box is selected in the Effects area of the dialog box. If it is, then anything you enter into the cell will be displayed using strikethrough.

It is possible, as well, that someone has applied a custom style to the cell, a custom style that utilizes strikethrough. You can determine this by selecting the cell and, on the Home tab of the ribbon, clicking the Cell Styles tool. This displays a drop-down palette of both built-in and custom styles. The custom styles will be at the top of the palette, and you can tell if one of them is selected, which means it is applied to the cell, and if that style utilizes strikethrough.

To check the conditional formatting, again select the cell. Then, on the Home tab of the ribbon, click Conditional Formatting and then Manage Rules. This displays the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager dialog box and it will be immediately apparent if there are any conditional formatting rules applicable to the cell.

If you want to skip to the chase, you can simply clear all the formatting in the cell. You do this by displaying the Home tab of the ribbon, clicking Clear (in the Editing group), and then Clear Formats. This removes all formatting from the selected cells, which means that if you want to use scientific notation in the cell, you'll need to reapply that format.

Finally, if none of this works, it is possible that there is a macro at play that is doing the formatting. For instance, if the workbook includes an event handler that is triggered after entering something in a cell, the handler could be applying formatting. If you suspect this, you'll need to either modify the macro or save the workbook as an XLS file (which strips out all macros) and then see if that fixes the issue.

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