How to Put Equal Sign in Excel without Formula (4 Easy Ways)

Sometimes, users need to put an equal sign in Excel without a formula. Some situations demand inserting equal signs without performing a calculation or formula insertion. Though it’s a basic Excel expertise, some users find themselves in stuck-outs. There are multiple ways to put equal signs in Excel without ever using a formula as shown in the below overview.

How to Put Equal Sign in Excel without Formula: 4 Easy Ways

Follow any below methods to insert an equal (=) sign without using an Excel formula.

Method 1: Using Apostrophe to Put Equal Sign in Excel without Formula

🔼 Putting an equal (=) sign without entering a formula in Excel is easy. Just put an Apostrophe (‘) before the Equal (=) sign. This Apostrophe (‘) converts the cell format into Text and displays the equal signs in it.

🔼 Repeat putting Apostrophes (‘) in cells as needed, you’ll get a similar result as depicted in the following picture.

Method 2: Insert Preceding Text to Put Equal Signs without Formula

🔼 Preceding Text allows users to insert equal signs without ever using an Excel formula. Write the necessary text before putting an equal sign as shown in the below screenshot.

🔼 Placing necessary text before an Equal (=) sign displays cells’ content with the Equal (=) sign with no issues. As you can see from the below image, all the Salary Information cells contain an Equal (=) sign inside them.

Method 3: Formatting Cells as Text to Insert Equal Sign without Formula

Excel offers the Format Cells feature to preformat cells depending on customers’ needs. We can use the Format Cells options to customize cells as Text to put equal signs in them without inserting a formula.

🔼 Highlight the desired cells then click on the Font Settings icon (Within the Home tab).

🔼 Excel brings the Format Cells window. Choose the Number section > Select Text > Then click on OK.

🔼 Now, input the Salary Data. You see all the cells are displaying entries with an equal sign. Also, the Number Format dialog box displays the cells’ format type as Text.

🔼 So, the final depiction of the inserted entries will be similar as shown in the below picture.

Method 4: Putting Equal Sign Using Double Quotes

🔼 Similar to Apostrophe (‘), Double Quotes (“) enable users to put equal signs in cells without performing any Excel formulas. Just type Double Quotes (“) on both sides of the equal sign. Then write whatever you want to write, Number or Text. Excel displays the content with the equal sign in it.

🔼 You can apply the tricks with as many as entries you like. The outcome will be the same as shown below image.

How to Use Show Formulas Feature to Display Data with Equal Sign

In Excel, users perform calculations using formulas. There is an option called Show Formulas in the Formula tab. Enabling this option displays equal signs wherever there are formulas in action.

Suppose we have the Salary Data of a company. Now, we want to display the equal signs where there are formulas in operations.

Steps:

🔼 Go to Formulas > Select Show Formulas (inside the Formula Auditing section).

🔼 In a moment, Excel displays all the equal signs existing in the dataset.

This method does not show the exact input of an equal sign without an Excel formula. However, it displays the formula with equal signs instead of their outcomes.

Download Excel Workbook

Putting Equal Sign without Formula.xlsx

Conclusion

In this article, we demonstrate multiple ways to put an equal sign in Excel without a formula. Hope you find these methods useful in your case. Comment, if you have any further inquiries or have anything to add.

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