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Excel - How to Drag to Enlarge the Formula Bar in Excel - Episode 625

539 views · Published 26 March 2009 · 2:03 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: MrExcel.com · 2009 · Education

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Microsoft Excel Tutorial: How to Drag to Enlarge the Formula Bar in Excel.

Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast where we share tips and tricks to help you become an Excel pro. In this video, I'll be showing you a cool trick that I learned from some Excel experts in Springfield, Illinois. 

One common problem in Excel 2003 is that when you have a very long formula, it tends to overwrite the spreadsheet, making it difficult to see both the formula and the value at the same time. For example, in cell Q2, the formula is so long that it covers up the first two and a half rows of the spreadsheet. This can be frustrating and time-consuming to work with. 

Fortunately, in Excel 2007, they made a significant improvement to this issue. When you select a cell with a long formula, instead of extending the formula bar over the worksheet, you now have options. You can choose to extend the formula bar to show the formula one line at a time. But here's the cool trick that I didn't know - you can actually make the formula bar as long as you want. 

Simply grab the margin between the formula bar and the spreadsheet and adjust it to your desired length. This way, you can see the entire formula and the value at the same time. Alternatively, you can collapse the formula bar to show only one line at a time and expand it when needed. This functionality is only available in Excel 2007 and it's a game-changer for those working with long formulas. 

As I travel and do seminars, I'm starting to see more and more people switching over to Excel 2007. On average, about 12% of users have made the switch, but in some seminars, I've encountered up to 30% of attendees using Excel 2007. With the upcoming service release in Q1, I expect to see even more people making the switch. So if you haven't already, it's time to upgrade to Excel 2007 and take advantage of this and many other useful features. Thanks for watching and don't forget to tune in for our next netcast from MrExcel.

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Excel 2007 features an amazing expanding formula bar. Todays podcast takes a look at how to handle extremely long formulas in Excel 2007. Episode 625 shows you how.

This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!

Table of Contents:
(00:00) Introduction 
(00:16) Excel 2003 problem with long formulas 
(00:41) Excel 2007 improvement 
(00:51) Options for viewing long formulas 
(01:02) Trick to make formula bar longer 
(01:13) Collapse or expand formula bar 

(01:25) Increase in people switching to Excel 2007 
(01:43) Clicking Like really helps the algorithm

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