How to Hide Formula Bar in Excel (and Show)? 3 Easy Ways

(Note: This guide on how to hide formula bar in Excel is suitable for all Excel versions including Office 365)

Have you ever felt the presence of the formula bar a little inappropriate for your needs and requirements in your current worksheet? In such cases, you might want to hide them and display the formula bar again only when needed.

In this article, I will tell you 3 ways to hide formula bar in Excel and how to display the hidden formula bar in Excel.

You’ll Learn:

• What Is the Formula Bar and Why Is It Important?
  • Parts of a Formula Bar in Excel?
• Why Hide the Formula Bar in Excel?
• How to Hide the Formula Bar in Excel?
  • From the View Main Menu
  • From Excel Options
  • Using the Hotkeys

Watch our video on how to hide the formula bar in Excel in 3 easy ways

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What Is the Formula Bar and Why Is It Important?

Excel predominantly deals with a variety of formulas and functions. Some data might be a direct result of specific formulas and others might be a connecting link that provides a resultant value to other formulas. So, how do you find which formula corresponds to the value and which formula is used to find the resultant value? 

Here is where the Formula Bar comes into play. 

The formula bar is one of the most important tools in Excel. Using this bar, you can write formulas, view them, and search for formulas. Even though you can enter the formulas from the cells, the Formula bar will be useful when you have to enter long formulas and refer to them. Not only does the formula bar shows the formulas, but it also displays the data of any data type present in the cell.

Parts of a Formula Bar in Excel?

The formula bar is found below the main menu ribbon. It consists of:

1. Name Box: This shows the cell or cell range selected. 
2. Insert Function (f_x): This contains the list of formulas based on category and you can refer to or use them. The X and ✔ are used to close and enter the function respectively.
3. Down-arrow: the dropdown arrow to the right of the formula bar is used to extend it when the formulas are lengthy. You can also drag the formula bar to extend it.

Why Hide the Formula Bar in Excel?

We might have seen how to hide formulas from showing up in the formula bar in Excel, but in some cases, you might even need to hide the whole formula bar. By default, the formula bar shows up when you open Excel. 

There might be a variety of reasons why you want to hide formula bar in Excel. 

• If you are an expert and are comfortable writing the formula in the cells, you might not need the formula bar. 
• Hiding the formula bar makes up more space for other rows to be visible. Only 28 rows are visible with the formula bar displayed, and 30 rows when the formula bar is hidden. 
• Hide the formula bar while presenting and sharing to keep the viewers from knowing the formula used to get the value, thereby maintaining confidentiality.

But, in some cases, the formula bar might be involuntarily or accidentally hidden.

Now, let us see how to hide formula bar in Excel and how to show the formula bar if they are hidden.

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How to Hide the Formula Bar in Excel?

There are multiple ways to hide formula bar in Excel and in the same way you can revert them. 

From the View Main Menu

This is a direct method to hide the formula bar in Excel. 

1. To hide formula bar in Excel, first, open any spreadsheet and select any cell. The cell can contain formulas and data, or it can even be an empty cell.

2. Navigate to View. Under the Show section, uncheck the checkbox for the Formula Bar. You can see that the instant you uncheck the checkbox, the formula bar disappears.

In the same way, you can choose to show the formula bar in Excel.

Just navigate to View, and check the box for Formula Bar. The formula bar appears with the formula of the selected cell.

From Excel Options

This is another method to hide formula bar in Excel. 

1. Open any Excel workbook. Navigate to File and click on Options

2. This opens the Excel Options dialog box. In the dialog box, click on Advanced in the left pane. Scroll down and under the Display options, uncheck the checkbox for the Show formula bar. Click OK.

This hides the formula bar from the Excel workbook. 

In case you want to display the formula bar, navigate to File and click on Options. Under Advanced, scroll down to the Display section and check the checkbox to show the formula bar. Click OK. This displays the formula bar below the main menu ribbon.

Using the Hotkeys

This is the easiest and fastest method to hide or show the formula bar in Excel. With the help of a few keyboard taps, you can easily hide or show the formula bar in Excel. 

This method works on the principle that pressing certain keys in successions act as an alternative to manually navigating and selecting the options.

1. Open an Excel workbook.

2. Press the Alt key. Once you press the Alt key, Excel shows you a layout of shortcut keys that correspond to a specific function.

3. Press the keys which are mapped to View and the ones which are mapped to the Formula Bar checkbox.

4. Press W and press V and then F. This instantly hide the formula bar.

You can use the same method If the formula bar is already hidden and you want to display it. Press the keyboard shortcut key Alt and then W, V, and F one after the other to show the formula bar in Excel.

Note: Changing the visibility of the formula bar applies to the whole Excel workbook. If you hide the formula bar and open a new Excel workbook/worksheet, the changes will persist unless you change the settings to show the formula bar.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Closing Thoughts

In this article, we saw 3 methods on how to hide the formula bar in Excel and display it when needed. 

Some people prefer having the formula bar displayed in their worksheet, others prefer it hidden. There are several instances where hiding the formula bar is necessary and you have to display them again after. This is where hiding the formula bar is useful.

If you need more high-quality Excel Guides, please check out our free Excel resources center. Simon Sez IT has been teaching Excel for ten years. For a low monthly fee, you can get access to 130+ IT training courses. Click here for advanced Excel courses with in-depth training modules.

Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!