Excel 2010 Bible

Chapter 32: Making Your Worksheets Error-Free

667

You can choose Formulas ➪ Formula Auditing ➪ Error Checking to display a dialog box that

describes each potential error cell in sequence, much like using a spell-checking command. This

command is available even if you disable background error checking. Figure 32.12 shows the

Error Checking dialog box. This dialog box is modeless: that is, you can still access your worksheet

when the Error Checking dialog box is displayed.

Caution
The error-checking feature isn’t perfect. In fact, it’s not even close to perfect. In other words, you can’t assume
that you have an error-free worksheet simply because Excel doesn’t identify any potential errors! Also, be
aware that this error-checking feature won’t catch a very common type of error: namely, overwriting a for-
mula cell with a value. n

FIGURE 32.12

Use the Error Checking dialog box to cycle through potential errors identified by Excel.

Using the Excel Formula Evaluator

Formula Evaluator lets you see the various parts of a nested formula evaluated in the order that the

formula is calculated. To use Formula Evaluator, select the cell that contains the formula and then

choose Formula ➪ Formula Auditing ➪ Evaluate Formula to display the Evaluate Formula dialog

box (see Figure 32.13).

FIGURE 32.13

The Evaluate Formula dialog box shows a formula being calculated one step at a time.