How to Show a Formula as Text with FORMULATEXT in Excel

Display the formula behind any cell, flag hard-coded numbers in an audit, and show the formula behind a looked-up row.

You will learn to

• Show a cell’s formula next to its result
• Test a formula’s text to catch hard-coded values
• Return the formula behind a looked-up cell

How it works

FORMULATEXT(reference) returns the formula in a cell as text, so =FORMULATEXT(D2) displays "=B2*(1+C2)" beside the price it calculates. It is ideal for documenting a model or teaching how a sheet works. If the cell holds a typed value instead of a formula, FORMULATEXT returns #N/A.

Because the result is ordinary text, you can test it. =IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("C",FORMULATEXT(D4))),"Uses markup","Hard-coded") flags price formulas that ignore the markup column — a quick audit for numbers typed straight into formulas.

=FORMULATEXT(D2)