How to replace formulas with their values in Excel

Here are good tips to save your time - 2 fastest ways to replace formulas in Excel cells with their values. Both hints work for Excel 365 - 2013.

You may have different reasons for converting formulas to values:

  • To be able to quickly insert values to other workbooks or sheets without wasting time on copy/paste special.
  • To keep your original formulas unknown when you send a workbook to another person (for example, your retail markup to the wholesale price).
  • To prevent the result from modifying when the numbers in the linking cells change.
  • Save the result of the rand() formula.
  • If you have a lot of complex formulas in your workbook which make recalculating really slow. And you cannot switch the "Workbook calculation" option to the manual mode.

Converting formulas to values using Excel shortcuts

Suppose, you have the formula to extract domain names from URLs.

You need to replace its results with values.
Excel formula to extract domain names from URLs

Just follow the simple steps below:

  1. Select all the cells with formulas that you want to convert.
  2. Press Ctrl + C or Ctrl + Ins to copy formulas and their results to clipboard.
  3. Press Shift + F10 and then V to paste only values back to Excel cells.
    Shift + F10 + V is the shortest way to use Excel "Paste special - values only" dialog.

That's it! If this way is still not fast enough for you, have a look at the next tip.
Converting formulas to values using Excel shortcuts

Replacing formulas with values in a couple of mouse clicks

Have you ever had a feeling that some routine tasks in Excel that can be done in a few clicks take too much of your time? If so, you are welcome to our Ultimate Suite for Excel.

With this collection of 70+ time saving tools, you can quickly remove all blank cells, rows and columns; move columns by drag-n-dropping; count and sum by color, filter by the selected value, and much more.

With the Ultimate Suite installed in your Excel, here are the steps to get it working:

  1. Select all the cells with formulas you wish to replace with calculated values.
  2. Go to the Ablebits Tools tab > Utilities group.
  3. Click Convert Formulas > To Value.

Replacing formulas with their values

Done!
all the formulas are converted to calculated values.

I do encourage you to explore other features of our Ultimate Suite. I can assure you that it will save 4-5 minutes on one Excel task, 5-10 minutes on another task, and by the end of the day it will save you an hour or more. How much does an hour of your work cost? :)

55 comments

  1. Couldn't leave without thanking you for good job and advice. Thank you

  2. I admire the useful info you provide in your content. I&#;l1782l bookmark your weblog and have my children check up here usually. I am very positive they will learn a lot of new things right here than anyone else!

  3. THANK YOU! Exactly what I needed! :)

  4. i had made a sheet called projection with the help of value from different excel file.but while opening that file after some hours in place of value #ref appear how can i resolve it

  5. HOW TO ADD MORE THAN 16 DIGIT NUMBERS IN EXCEL

  6. Is there any way to convert conditioning value to original valve?
    please any assist?

    Thanks in advance.

  7. HI there
    I have a sheet with raw data. A second sheet with a conversion table. How do I convert the raw data to the converted values, using the conversion table as a ref?

    • The shortcoming of this built-in solution is that, it doesn't allow to edit multiple cells at a time.

  8. THANK YOU!!!

  9. Thanks ! U r great. :)

  10. I installed but not showing up anywhere.
    I 've looked in add-ins and all customizeable menus - and can't seem to figure out how to get it to show up on my menus.

  11. please send excel send me excel file for numbers covert to words im try so many times but not get formula please send me file

  12. please send me excel file numbers covert to words in dollars im try so many times but not i am not get that formuala please send excel file

  13. Thanx for helping me..thats very useful to me

  14. how to combine 10-15 files of excel into one file............ please tell e the easy way for that.

  15. Formula to value - does what it says on the tin - bang on - cheers

    • I want 12 to be added if X is greater than 2 and leave X as it is if Xmas is less than 2

  16. I'll add that I am not looking for the "paste values" solution. Basically, I need to set up a function/formula that automatically pastes the values over to a new column without the formula formatting. Just text.

  17. Can anyone help me!?! I have a column with data that is the result of a formula. So, I'd like to create another column next to it that has the exact same data, but just as text values, not as the product of the formula. So, when new values are created on the formula side, the second column is automatically populated with resulting values BUT IN TEXT FORMAT ONLY. The problem I am having is that when my original column of data is populated from the result of the formula, the cells that I would like to be blank are not blank, they are shown as zero. If I can get the information to automatically populate a column of text values only, I can set up conditional formatting that will remove any zeros, which will make my life a lot easier. I appreciate it.

    • You can't really have a cell automatically populating based on another cell without a formula. If there's no formula, it will be static.

      If you're looking for the 2nd column to be the same as the first but without the 0 values try using =if(A1=0,"",A1) in the 2nd column, or something like that. (This sets the 2nd column value to Null/Empty instead of a zero)

    • It is possible to do only with VBA.
      Under--Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
      It will be populated in the corresponding column, by placing IF clause. Now you need only value. So convert it into to special paste value from vba script. At last loop will close and selection change process will be deactivated once you click/change value.

      Hope It will help you.

  18. Thank you!!! Exactly what i was looking for. Fastest method founded. Thanks.

  19. fRANKLY, IT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR.
    THANKS A LOT

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