I can't type anything into excel

Question

Level 1

9 points

I can't type anything into excel

Hi,

Earlier this morning something happened (which I don't know how) while I was working on an excel worksheet, and that caused me not being able to write anything anymore, I can't even use the arrow keys to go up, down, let, and write. I only am able to paste something into the cells, nothing more.

I don't know if something is wrong with num pad / num lock or something, I couldn't find any solution searching on the ned,

I'm using Mac OS X Yosemite version 10.10, and excel 2010 is installed on the system

Any help is appreciated,

Posted on Nov 29, 2014 5:33 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 29, 2014 5:50 AM in response to mo-no

Are you sure you don't have Excel 2011?

In any even, see Office for Mac updates and make sure your Office is updated.

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads

If that fails, make a copy of your preference file and then delete the preference file for Excel and restart Excel.

See advice in this thread

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5176737?tstart=0

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Answer 2

mo-no Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 29, 2014 6:14 PM in response to Sparkleberry

Thanks Sparkleberry for your comment

Actually you are right, it's Excel 2011!

unfortunately still I couldn't fixed it up, I had seen this kind of problem on PCs before, and as far as I remember now that had to do something with numlock button; where if it was turned on you wouldn't be able to type on the worksheet / or maybe something else too (forgive me if I know it wrong).

Now the same thing I believe has happened here but I just can't figure out how to turn off the numlock button here.

I can paste text into cells, but totally can't use the keyboard to write into them.

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Answer 3

Nov 30, 2014 2:40 PM in response to mo-no

As a last resort you could uninstall Office 2011 and then reinstall it.

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Answer 4

mo-no Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 30, 2014 3:44 PM in response to Sparkleberry

thanks for your comments,

Mac somethimes make people lazy, letting people pile up browsers and programs kept opened for days if not weeks. Fortunately I could force closing all those open files and restarting excel which magically made excel start working again perfectly well again.

Thanks again for your comments Sparkelberry

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Answer 5

Dec 16, 2014 10:55 PM in response to mo-no

You can also quit the Excel application from the menu bar on the bottom. (Go to the menu bar on the bottom and right click on excel application and "quit" the application. Then restart the app. It will work.) If any of the app giving you a hard time, please quit it and re open it.

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Answer 6

Dec 29, 2014 3:47 AM in response to mo-no

Hi, I had the same problem this morning, I force quite all my open programs and Excel is now working fine.

Thanks ALL.

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Answer 7

JEL888

Level 1

59 points

Jan 26, 2015 8:01 AM in response to shanefrommaidstone

Ditto, this helped me today in a pinch! Thanks!!!

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Answer 8

Juno96

Level 1

4 points

Oct 15, 2015 9:18 AM in response to mo-no

I Discovered if I click on the fx are at top of worksheet while in the cell you want to type in, it allows you to type whatever you wish.

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Answer 9

maxispin

Level 1

13 points

Jul 10, 2017 12:21 PM in response to Juno96

I am having excel 2016 and the same thing. I have nothing else opened than one excel document. One cell having some numbers. Other excel documents worked but not this one.

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Answer 10

Eric Root

Level 10

684,015 points

Jul 10, 2017 5:59 PM in response to maxispin

Try looking/posting here.

Microsoft Support – Office for Mac (2)

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