Worksheets containing existing formulas

Hello Louise

Thank you for your question and welcome to the forum.

There are a couple of things that you can use to help you prevent making changes that would lead to problems or errors in existing formulas.

1. Change the view of the spreadsheet so you can see where the formulas are (helps to stop you overwriting them by accident). This can be done by pressing the Ctrl + pipe key (key directly below Esc) or going to Tools - Options - View tab and ticking Formulas under Window options. This displays formulas in their cells instead of formula results.

If others are also using the spreadsheet you may wish to set up protection on the spreadsheet to prevent them overwriting cells that contain formulas.

2. Check if the file has links to other files. If you go to the Edit menu, and the Links option is available (i.e. not greyed out) then it means that the file contains links to other files.
By clicking the Links option you can find out what files the spreadsheet is linked to. If any of these files are moved or renamed, then this will cause an issue as Excel will not be able to update the links for you.

3. If there is an error in a formula, there is a Formula Auditing toolbar that you can use to help you troubleshoot formula errors (View-Toolbars-Formula Auditing).

I hope this helps.
Amanda