# Excel question - how to turn off when it "corrects" your entries. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 27, 2002, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-how-to-turn-off-when-it-corrects-your-entries/129810 "2002-09-27T02:58:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![intrigante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b19c9b/32.png) [@intrigante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/intrigante)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-how-to-turn-off-when-it-corrects-your-entries/129810/1 "2002-09-27T02:58:54Z")
Excel keeps driving me nuts by changing things I type in and I have no idea how to stop that. Right now for example, I have a field where I want to enter the single letter i but it always capitalizes it to I When I type ii or iii it won’t do that. I also have a terrible time inserting a - in front of a word. It always changes it into a minus sign, and says the “equation” is undefined! And this is after I’ve tried all the obvious Format modes, like General or Text. Also, anything with an @ becomes a live “link” in blue and I can’t even click on the cell to change it without it trying to “execute” the “link” ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-how-to-turn-off-when-it-corrects-your-entries/129810/2 "2002-09-27T03:12:16Z")
Format the cells you are using to text - highlight the cells, go to format on the toolbars, then text. The descriptor should say it displays the text exactly as entered. ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-how-to-turn-off-when-it-corrects-your-entries/129810/3 "2002-09-27T03:13:46Z")
Ah, and if I’d completely read your post I would have seen that you indicated you already tried that. That’s what I get for skimming. Umm…I have no idea then. ---
**Author:** ![warhol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@warhol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warhol)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-how-to-turn-off-when-it-corrects-your-entries/129810/4 "2002-09-27T03:15:12Z")
Might I suggest using a hammer? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-how-to-turn-off-when-it-corrects-your-entries/129810/5 "2002-09-27T03:19:42Z")
On the tools menu, click on autocorrect. Clear the replace text as you type box. ---
**Author:** ![cybersnark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@cybersnark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cybersnark)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-how-to-turn-off-when-it-corrects-your-entries/129810/6 "2002-09-27T12:48:04Z")
I dunno, stopping the autocorrect feature from replacing text as you type will prevent it from correcting a lot of other common typos. The reason Excel is changing your lower case i-s to upper case I-s is because there is a default autocorrect rule included in Excel to do so. To delete it, from the TOOLS drop-down menu, choose AUTOCORRECT, then, scroll down on the alphabetical list of default rules until you find "Replace ‘i’ with ‘I’ ", highlight it, and then delete it. ---
**Author:** ![Dragline](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/edb3f5/32.png) [@Dragline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragline)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-how-to-turn-off-when-it-corrects-your-entries/129810/7 "2002-09-27T13:25:43Z")
Another good resource is: [http://www.mrexcel.com](http://www.mrexcel.com) They’ve helped me on occaision. ---
**Author:** ![RedNaxela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ad7895/32.png) [@RedNaxela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedNaxela)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-how-to-turn-off-when-it-corrects-your-entries/129810/8 "2002-09-27T13:38:09Z")
As far as the i-to-I “correction” - what **cybersnark** said. For the other problems, put a single quote (’) before the first character of the text you want displayed - that overrides any special meaning that Excel would attach to the hyphen or the @ sign. (The ’ doesn’t actually show up in the cell, only in the Formula bar.) ---
**Author:** ![Powers106](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@Powers106](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers106)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-how-to-turn-off-when-it-corrects-your-entries/129810/9 "2002-09-27T14:01:17Z")
This doesn’t work in EXCEL, but in WORD. If you have names or words that are all capitals or all lower case or whatever, highlight them and the SHFT-F3 simultaneously allows you to toggle between all caps, first letter capitalized and no capitals. ---
**Author:** ![RedDawgEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dbc845/32.png) [@RedDawgEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedDawgEsq)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-how-to-turn-off-when-it-corrects-your-entries/129810/11 "2002-09-27T20:37:53Z")
This is probably the same reason it’s almost impossible to type a simple © paragraph marking in WinWord. What you get is the Copyright symbol instead. GAWD, I hate software that THINKS it knows what I want better than I do.