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Evaluate part of a formula

F9Editing & references

Select a piece of a formula and see the value it produces — the best debugging trick.

Difficulty

Good
Practice file

1What it does

When a nested formula misbehaves, F9 tells you where. Edit the formula, select just one part of it — an inner SUM, a MATCH, a logical test — and press F9: Excel replaces that selection with the value it currently returns, right in the formula bar. You see exactly what each piece evaluates to, so you can find the wrong branch. Press Esc (not Enter) to restore the formula afterwards.

2The shortcut

F9
  1. 1Press F2 to edit the formula.
  2. 2Select the sub-expression you want to check (e.g. MATCH(A2, List, 0)).
  3. 3Press F9 to see its value — then Esc to put the formula back unchanged.

3Before → after

Press the shortcut to play it on a sample sheet.

or press the keys for real

Editing the formula — press F9 to evaluate the selected piece

fx=B2*C2 + D2

The whole formula, before evaluating any part. (Say B2=48, C2=50, D2=500.)

4When you use it

  • Find which part of a nested formula returns the wrong thing.
  • Confirm a logical test is TRUE or FALSE before trusting the IF.
  • Check what a lookup's position or key resolves to.

5Related functions

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