Missing formula bar in Excel – what to do. 3 solutions to the problem if the formula bar disappeared

One of the main places in importance in the Excel application is the formula bar. Its purpose is based on making calculations and editing the contents of cells. The peculiarity of the formula bar is that by highlighting the cell with the final value, the display of the actions performed in the calculations will be included. Unfortunately, sometimes situations arise when this button disappears from the Excel panel. We will analyze several situations that may result in such problems, and how they are solved in the simplest ways.

The formula bar disappeared: what is the reason

There are only two main reasons why this interface element can disappear from the toolbar – this is a change in Excel settings and a software failure. But they are divided into more detailed cases.

Reason #1: Change feed settings

This type of problem can occur after a user accidentally unchecks an element that is responsible for the operation of the formula bar. Let’s see how to solve the problem:

1. At the top of the toolbar is the View button.
2. By hovering the cursor and pressing the left button, we go to the corresponding tab.
3. Having found the formula line, see if there is a tick in front of it. Install if necessary.
4. As a result of the actions taken, the line will reappear in the program interface.

Attention! You do not need to restart the program or computer to fix the settings.

 Reason #2: Excel Options Settings Changed

The formula bar may disappear after accidentally or forcibly disabling it in the program options. To solve the problem, two methods are used: the first was described earlier, and to fix the problem in the second way, you will need to reproduce all the steps in the same sequence as when disabling this function. Which one is simpler and more understandable is up to the PC user to decide. Solution in the second way:

1. On the toolbar, find “File” and move on.
2. In the tab that opens, you need to find “Settings”. As a rule, the interface element is located at the very bottom of the program.

3. Next, in the window that opens, go down to the “Advanced” line, after clicking on which “Additional options for working with Excel” will appear on the left side.
4. By rotating the mouse wheel, we raise the page up, where we find the “Screen” group of settings.
5. A little lower you can find “Show formula bar”.
6. On the contrary, check the box.

Important! Unlike the previous troubleshooting method, this one requires confirmation of the settings change. Therefore, in order for the changes to take effect, at the bottom of the additional settings of the parameters, you need to click the “OK” button, which will mean the completion of the actions.

Reason #3: Program crash or corruption

Solving the problem, if errors were made in the settings, are corrected quite easily, but what to do if the program crashes, or it completely fails. In this case, you need to try to restore Excel. The following is an example of restoring a program using Windows 10 as an example. Although the settings in earlier versions of Windows are almost the same:

1. In the lower left corner, click the “Start” button.
2. In the search bar we write “Control Panel”.
3. After detection by the system, open the application by pressing the left mouse button.
4. In the application that opens, you need to set the appearance of the icons to small and go to “Programs and Features”.
5. The Uninstall/Change Programs window will open. Here we find the application we need (in this case, Microsoft Excel or Office) and right-click on it. In the dialog box that appears, you need to activate the “Change” button. Also, the operation can be performed by clicking on the name of the program with the left button and clicking in the header of the list of the appeared interface element “Change”.

6. As soon as the start of the change is confirmed, a new window for restoring the program will open. Here you need to choose one of the methods. As a rule, “Quick Recovery” is sufficient, which does not require an Internet connection. Therefore, we stop our choice on this item and click the “Restore” button.

The “Uninstall and change a program” window contains a common Microsoft Office package, after starting the changes, a full recovery of all programs included in this product from Microsoft will be reproduced. Wait for the process to complete and make sure that the formula bar appears in its place. If this does not happen, refer to the second method.

Advice! The second method “Restore over the network” is selected only if nothing has changed after the first method. It requires more time and a stable internet connection.

Conclusion

When identifying a problem with the loss of the formula bar, you do not need to despair and panic. Please read this article first. Perhaps the reason was an accidental change in the program settings, which is corrected in a matter of minutes. In the worst case, when the program crashes, you will need to restore Microsoft Office, which is also easily done if you follow all the instructions.