Missing Formula Bar in Excel (for Mac)

My Formula bar was missing in Excel (Mac). Click on View > Formula Bar and the option was ticked. Tried on untick - but stayed ticked.

Closed all other tool bars, no help.

Found solution: hold down CONTROL and SHIFT keys and start Excel. Resets the tool bars and the Formula bar magically reappeared.

Comments

[JT]

It worked!!!!!! Thank you so much!!!!!

[Toni]

David,

Thank you for the help. I see this action restore the formula bar as a 'floating' bar. One question still: How do I get the formula bar to become permanent into the spreadsheet.

This does not seem to be possible. Thanks again :)

[David Eedle]

Hi Toni

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you mean docking the bar to the top or side of your screen? In which case just drag it to the place and it will automatically attach itself.

The mystery for me is why it randomly disappears!

David

[Doc]

Saved the day! Thanks

[Eleanor]

I have just found that my formula bar is under the Mac menu bar - only a little is showing and I can't get hold of it to move it
Is there a ctrl + sequence I could use to make it move?
I ried the Ctrl+Shift on starting Excel but that didn't make any difference
Don't know how I managed to get it up there!
Thanks for your help
Eleanor

[David Eedle]

Hi Eleanor

I haven't had this problem. Have you tried turning off the menu bar, closing Excel, then restarting Excel and turning the menu bar back on?

David

[andrew]

Hello Eleanor / David. I have same problem with formul bar hidden under menu bar. Have tried everything I have found online but can't seem to fix it. Including changing screen resolution and ctrl shift reset. Help. Andy

[Janet]

Thank you!! That was really frustrating me and what an easy solution. Weird

[Richard Haseldine]

Thanks David, this worked a treat and saved my day!!
Richard

[Veronica]

Worked for me as well. Thanks.

[Greg]

I had the same problem as Elanor/David/etc and could also see that the formula bar was hidden behind the menu bar... But there seemed to be no way of moving it. So I searched on AltaVista (Yahoo!) and this page of David's was the top hit on my search... I tried David's suggestion, and "it just worked"! Boom!! :-) Thanks David!! Greg

[Laura McLean]

Thank you!

[David]

Thanks for the suggestion. I ran into this problem several days ago and am still seeking a solution. I have lost (missing-not hidden) my formula bar in Excel on my 13 inch MacBook Pro and am having trouble restoring it. After failure with many attempts to restore the missing Formula Bar, I shut down Excel and held down CONTROL and SHIFT keys and started Excel. It did "magically" restore the Formula bar however it is not a permanent condition. When I "force quit" Excel or shut down and/or restart my computer, the Formula Bar does not reappear when I open an Excel file. I can go through the same procedure and I can reestablish it each time, and it will remain with Excel until I shut down again. Is there a way to make the fix permanent without trashing files. As a footnote, under Preferences/View in Excel, the “Show Formula Bar” is checked along with the “Show Status Bar”, the latter of which is not a problem.

Thanks,

[LuAnn]

I have tried all solutions in this conversation and none worked. I can get a 'floating' formula through the View menu but I would like to have a permanent formula bar on the menu.

[David Eedle]

LuAnn, sounds like you need to drag your toolbar panel up to the Toolbar at the top. It should 'dock', eg attach itself and become a part of the Tool Bar.

You can do this with pretty much all tool bar panels in Microsoft products.

David

[jaime@inlanguageradio.com]

My formula bar also 'hides' under my Tool Bar and I too can get it to reappear by restarting Excel and holding the Control and Shift keys. And like David above, the problem re-occurs whenever I restart the app. I'm using Excel 2008 with a MacBook Pro using 10.7.3

[Vivien]

HI I just found another fix after going crazy and not always wanting to re-open and close..

View Full Screen. When I come out of full screen it is hidden then view full screen, voila there again.

[Walt P]

Thanks a bunch! It even worked for me on my Windows 7 laptop. You ended a frustrating couple of hours wondering what happened to the formula bar. It does apparently mean you have to always start Excel in "Safe mode", but I don't restart that often. I wish they would just tell you up front about this kind of thing...