Excel 2016 - Cannot type anything into a cell all of a sudden

Anonymous

Hi,

I am experiencing a problem with Excel 2016 that is really frustrating.

I am working normally in excel 2016, when all of a sudden I cannot type anything into a cell. If I press Ecs nothing happens. I do not have macros, nor protected sheet or cells. I am working with multiple (2 or more) open excel files at the same time. I tried to figure out, if I press some combination of keys that would cause this, but found nothing. I, however, can move the mouse over the sheet and click different cells. I think the arrow keys work as well.

The strange thing that always "solves" the problem is pressing Enter. Pressing the Enter opens another Excel file that is already opened, and after simply going back to the first one, I then can work on normally. This can occur once, twice but sometimes even 10-times in a single day! Just terrible.

This is time demanding, many times I write into a cell and then see that the cell is still blank, I press the enter to make it work again, going back... - I cannot work like this.

When I was working with the same files in Excel 2013 and 2010 I hadn't have experienced such problems.

I already read some other forums with people experiencing the same problem, but haven't found any solution yet.

Do you have any?

Thank you!

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169 answers

Anonymous

2018-08-14T19:30:40+00:00

Hello all,

Just wanted to keep this thread going because I have also encountered this problem on a weekly basis for a year or so now. I performed the ol' google search and it brought me here but with no resolution, obviously. Hopefully Microsoft will bring out a solution soon. I wish I could recreate the problem but find it near impossible to do so.
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Anonymous

2018-07-25T09:16:06+00:00

Try as I might, I am not able to reproduce this consistently. It just happens sometimes out of the blue. Some of the staff did claim that it happened to them a few times per day and in some days, nothing. A bit annoying.
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Anonymous

2018-07-23T11:20:38+00:00

This 'solution' has worked for me.

I find it amazing and annoying that this bug has emerged in Excel and that Microsoft has not buried this problem months ago. I have been using Excel for years and now, today, I suddenly lost the possibility of entering data into a very important vital document that I use nearly every day.

It first occurred when I inserted a new Row into the spreadsheet. A formatting option (as Row above?, as Row below?, etc.) mysteriously appeared for the first time ever, and I could no longer enter data into any cell.

This is a disgrace.

Get it sorted Microsoft!
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Anonymous

2018-07-22T10:56:55+00:00

I have had the problem in Excel 365 that suddenly I can't type in some or all of the cells. I had several files open, closed them all down and re-opened the one I wanted. Then I could type as I wanted. I don't know if this is a solution or I have just been lucky in this instance. It is an extremely poor show from Microsoft though.
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Anonymous

2018-07-18T07:04:22+00:00

Hi,

I also found out that when I am in the middle of typing in the cell, it suddenly stars typing backwards. But then when I press enter excel jumps to another excel workbook that I have open. When I come back, everything works fine, and the cell does not contain any backward writing. This is the same issue as already reported.

p.s.: I unfortunately haven't received any (official) reply to my written complaint sent to Microsoft on 19th June 2018. It has been a month now.

Wishing you all a nice day,

P.
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