Excel should allow delete cell's value but leave formula alone.

[MrQuick]

Is it possible to delete a cell's VALUE without deleting (or "Clearing") the
cell's formula?

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[Dave O]

Yes: multiply by zero.

[Dave Peterson]

Make your formula return what looks like blank when you don't need it:

=Sheet1!A1+sheet1!b99
may become

=if(sheet1!a1+sheet1!b99=0,"",sheet1!a1+sheet1!b99)

But once you put in a formula, it's gonna have to evaluate to something...

--

Dave Peterson

[Gord Dibben]

F5>Special>Constants. Uncheck/check what you want to delete and OK

Edit>Clear Contents.

Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

[MrQuick]

~ In the "Go To Special" dialog box, I clicked the empty circle w/"Constants"
next to it.
~ "Formulas" remained unselected.
~ The 4 boxes sub to "Formulas" became operative and were all checked: they
are... Numbers/Text/Logicals/Errors.
~ What boxes do I UNCHECK so as to allow me to delete a cell's value but
leave the formula alone after "OK" and then clicking Edit>Clear Contents
~ Also, when should I select the cell to be operated on? Before hitting
F5...? Before Edit>Clear Contents?

PS: My idea is for the "Edit" menu have a "Delete Special" or something like
that so users can decide do delete everything (values, formula, formatting)
or any one or two of the 3 characteristics of a particular cell.
Unfortunately MS only allows upto 10 or so words per suggestion which is a
little skimpy if you ask me. Maybe what I'm asking violates some law of
physics. Maybe the programming language necessary for accomplishment of my
idea has not been invented.

[Mark Lincoln]

I don't understand what purpose such a thing would serve. If I don't
want a value in a cell, I do as Dave has suggested by writing my
formula to return nothing if the cell should look blank. Or delete the
formula.

If you don't want to see the value returned by a formula, I suppose you
could use the same color for the cell text and cell background.

[Gord Dibben]

1. Select all cells first.

2. F5>Special>Constants where you will have the four options to check or
uncheck.

Usually you would uncheck Text because you want to keep Titles etc.

3. Hit OK which will select cells with data from which your formulas derive
their values.

Edit>Delete and your data will be cleared, leaving the formulas intact but with
no values.

Experiment a bit until you get the correct combination.

Always best to do this on a copy of the sheet.

Gord

[Mark Lincoln]

To be more precise, the formulae are left intact but their cells will
display whatever values are derived by operating on empty cells. This
leads to the possibility of the cells showing zeros (and zero is a
value) or error messages such as '#DIV/0!' or '#VALUE!'.