Excel 2016 name box missing 1

[dgallup]

I've searched a good bit and I can not figure this out. I have a number of files where the name box is missing. This is the box that shows the name of the cell you are in or when you start to type a formula it gives you a pull down menu of recently used functions. It should look like this (showing A20 in the pic):

But certain files don't show the name box which makes it really hard to enter formulas. They look like this:

These files are in different windows of the same session. It seems to go with the files. Turning the formula bar off and on does not fix the problem.

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[Agent666]

Never come across that particular issue, but sometimes other addins (especially com addins) can mess with Excel inadvertently, maybe if you have any addins enabled try temporarily disabling these and see if it has any effect.

 

[IDS]

I can't find anything on this. Presumably it is a file related setting. Does it occur when the files are opened by themselves?

Probably worth raising in an Excel specific forum if you get nothing here.

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[IRstuff]

Can you post an example?

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[dgallup]

Been awhile since it's happened but I just had one today. I saved it, renamed it, opened it again and the name box is back. Same Excel session, still have 3 other files open. I was about to attach it but no point. I've got another one open at the moment that is missing the name box but the other files are fine.

OK, I deleted all the data out of a file with the name box missing and this time the behavior is sticking when I reopen it. File attached.

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[dgallup]

Well, that didn't really work, when I down loaded the file I just uploaded it the name box was back.

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[IRstuff]

Ditto.


XL2016 appears to have a number of oddities:
> repeated instances where cursor and cell selections refuse to show up on screen, even though the underlying operation works
> supposedly identical version of 2016 Plus does not have pinned folders, only pinned files.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[JG2828]

I did some Google searching on the issue. Didn't really turn up any reasons as to why it is happening, but it appears to be across many version of excel back to 2010. Someone said to close excel, then open task manager and if excel is still running in the background, kill the task. Then re-open the file and it should be fine.
I have never come across this issue myself.

 

[IFRs]

Does Ctrl-Shift-U happen to bring it back?
Or Ctrl-F1?
Or in the View ribbon un- and re- checking Show Formula bar?

 

[dgallup]

Nope, none of those make a difference.

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[IRstuff]

For the two I listed above, closing and restarting Excel usually clears it.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[dgallup]

Closing and restarting seems to fix it but it comes back after working for awhile.

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[JG2828]

Can you run excel with all add-ins disabled to see if they are causing this? (if you have any running). You can check under file/options/add-ins to see which ones are running. Then at the bottom you can manage excel add-ins and com add-ins

Another option would be to try "repairing" the Microsoft office installation by going to Add or Remove programs in windows, finding Microsoft Office, clicking Modify, then click repair.

 

[dgallup]

No add-ins. Did the "repair" on MS Office and no change. I opened 4 spreadsheets after the reboot and 3 of them were missing the name box. I went to file/info/inspect but there was nothing unusual about the files with the missing name box.

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[IRstuff]

Another possibility is that something got corrupted in the binary metadata for the files, so you might possibly try downsaving to an older file format and then upsaving to the current format.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[JG2828]

I have seen bugs in video card drivers do strange things to programs. Can you update your video card drivers?
Also, do you have one of those "High DPI monitors" or just a standard 1920x1080 resolution monitor.
I've seen funny things happen when attempting to scale to the 4k monitors.

 

[dgallup]

I run dual 24" monitors at 1920x1200 native resolution. I updated the driver back in September because that was when I was forced to update to Windoze 10. The problem predates those changes but it does seem to happen more frequently now.

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[aussiejohn2]

Win 10 also caused graphics issues for me in Excel 2016 (no other apps) - name box was ok but formula bar would vanish, charts & their formatting dialogues went haywire, and sometimes it would get stuck in a loop of refreshing/redrawing. Update of graphics drivers at the time (and everything else we could think of) did not help. However a more recent update of the drivers significantly reduced the incidence (Still happens but much less).
John.

 

[dgallup]

I was looking at all the installed programs on this machine and noticed that it had MS Office 2010 and 2016 installed. I use a couple utilities from Office 2010 that were stripped out of later versions. I reconfigured Office 2010 and uninstalled Excel and every other component that exists in 2016. So far so good, no missing name boxes. It's only been a couple of days so maybe I'm premature to declare victory. I'll come back if the problem reoccurs.

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[dgallup]

Nope. Just opened one today with the name box missing. I've got another spread sheet open and it has the name box.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.