Hide formulas from appearing in the edit bar

Excel 365 2016 2013 2007 2003
Usually you can view a formula in the Excel cell when cell is selected, but you can protect spreadsheet to hide formulas in some cells.

If you select the cell with formula, it will be visible in the edit bar:

Edit bar in Excel 2010

To hide the formula in the edit bar, do the following:

   1.   Un-protect all of the cells on the sheet. To do this, do the following:

   1.1.   Select all of the rows and columns in your sheet and right-click on the selected cells.

   1.2.   Select Format Cells... on the popup menu (or click Ctrl+Shift+F):

popup in Excel 2010

   1.3.   In the Format Cells dialog box, on the Protection tab, uncheck the Locked checkbox and then click OK:

Protection in Excel 2010

   2.   Select the cell(s) that you wish to hide the formulas for, right-click in it and select Format Cells... from the popup menu (or click Ctrl+Shift+F).

   3.   In the Format Cells dialog box, on the Protection tab, check the Hidden checkbox and then click OK:

Hidden Cell in Excel 2010

   4.   Protect the spreadsheet. To do this, follow next steps:

   4.1.   On the Review tab, in the Changes group, click the Protect Sheet button:

Changes in Excel 2010

   4.2.   In the Protect Sheet dialog box, on the Password to unprotect sheet box, type a password for the sheet, if you wish (Password is optional, for more details see Protecting spreadsheet elements) and then click OK:

Protect Sheet in Excel 2010

After that, the formula will no longer be displayed in the edit bar when the cell is selected.

Edit bar in Excel 2010

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