The article will show you some solutions to the problem of Excel formulas not working in Google Sheets. Although Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel have a lot of common functions, which work the same on both applications, there are still some limitations to using them. Sometimes, the reason can be technical or there could be a requirement to use additional functions. Please follow the article to gain some ideas on how to make Excel formulas work in Google Sheets.
Why Are Excel Formulas Not Working in Google Sheets?
There are various reasons for Excel formulas not working in Google Sheets. If your internet is shut down, formulas on Google Sheets may not work. Also, Google Sheets settings can be responsible for this kind of nuisance. Last but not least, Google Sheets have some formulas that are not compatible with Microsoft Excel and vice versa. Also, we may have to use additional functions to solve this problem. Let’s get to the point so you can gain the clear idea of solving this situation.
How to Solve When Excel Formulas Are Not Working in Google Sheets: 4 Practical Ways
We can follow different approaches to make Excel formulas work in Google Sheets. Let’s have a look at the following processes.
1. Refreshing Google Sheets
A common solution to make Excel formulas work in Sheets is to refresh the Sheet page.
Step:
- If you find that the formula is not working in Google Sheets, just click on the Refresh button of the Sheets
This approach may fix Excel formulas not working in an instant.
2. Changing Spreadsheet Settings to Make Formulas Working
If the problem cannot be solved by the previous method, you can approach a different way to make the formulas work in Google Sheets. To understand the process better, let’s go through it.
Steps:
- First, click on the File tab of Google Sheets.
- Next, select Settings.
- In the Settings window, select Calculation. You can see that there are two types of Calculation Select the Recalculation option.
- After that, change the ‘On change’ option to something else. Make sure you keep the Iterative calculation option disabled.
After that, you can use formulas without any obstacles.
3. Using Previous Version of Google Sheets
Another way to make the formulas work is to restore a previous version of the Google Sheet file that worked perfectly. Let’s have a look at the following description.
Steps:
- First, go to the File tab and select Version history >> See Version History. You may open it by using a keyboard shortcut (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+H).
- Next, you will see all the versions of your Sheet. Restore a version that worked perfectly or you can make a copy of that.
- After that, give that copy of the file a name and click on Make a copy.
Making a copy is safer because you may lose data accidentally after restoring the previous version over the new one. By following this approach, you can make the Excel formulas work in Google Sheets.
4. Using ARRAYFORMULA Function to Solve Issues with LOOKUP Function
Sometimes, Excel formulas don’t work in Google Sheets because the procedures to use those formulas in these apps are different. Here, we will show you an example of using the combined formula using the LOOKUP and ISNUMBER functions in Google Sheets.
Steps:
- In the dataset, we have some numbers. We are using the following formula to find the closest number of 1.9 in that set of numbers.
=LOOKUP(1.9,1/(ISNUMBER(B5:B9)),B5:B9)
- But when we use the same formula in Google Sheets, it returns an error or wrong results.
Here, the formula returns 0.1 which is not correct. Because the closest number of 1.9 in the dataset is 1.2, which was returned perfectly in Excel.
- So to get the right result, use the ARRAYFORMULA function in the formula.
=ArrayFormula(LOOKUP(1.9,1/(ISNUMBER(B5:B9)),B5:B9))
Thus you can solve Excel formulas not working in Google Sheets.
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Conclusion
In the end, we can conclude that you will have a clear idea of how to solve Excel formulas not working in Google Sheets. If you have any better suggestions or questions or feedback regarding this article, please share them in the comment box. This will help me enrich my upcoming articles.
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