Edit directly in cell not working.

Question

Edit directly in cell not working.

Anonymous

I know this is similar to an older thread, but the solution there (updating the version of Excel) is irrelevant here.

When I double click a cell, I do not get a cursor to edit within the cell.

Instead, I have to go up to the formula bar, which is inconvenient and annoying.

Typing when a cell is selected will replace the content there, but I usually need to be able to EDIT, not REPLACE.

In Preferences>Edit, "Edit directly in cells" is checked. There are no add-ins installed and i have restarted the mac several times but the problem insists

Excel Version 16.95.4 (25040241)

365 License subsription

Mac OS Sequoia 15.3.2

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

Accepted answer

8 additional answers

Answer 1

As Bob said, it's usually best to bear the pain and migrate to a new user account.

The first question that comes up is "What can make a user account go bad?" One thing I can think of that could cause this situation is a file system that needs repair. That leads to my first piece of advice: run a robust disk maintenance utility. Use it to verify the startup volume and all attached volumes. Before doing any additional troubleshooting, make sure the file system is OK. Another possibility is a bad memory block. Mac OS will automatically not use such a block, but anything stored in that memory segment is no longer available.

The second question is now that you have isolated the problem to a faulty Mac OS user account, "What should I do about it?"

You might reinstall Mac OS, but do NOT choose the erase option:

Reinstall macOS - Apple Support

Now decide what to do with the problem user account. You might try to fix it. If you are an expert and/or are lucky, one or two people who had a problem with their user account managed to figure out what was wrong and fixed it.

You know that everything works in a new user account. The installation of Office is fine. If it were me, I would migrate my files to the new user account and then delete the bad one in Mac OS System Preferences and be done with it.

Before transferring your document files, copy your user data from our old user account to the new one. Use the corresponding file locations when copying files to the new account’s locations. Here’s the default location of your templates and user files, but be aware that you may have set other locations in Word > Preferences > File Locations.

To get to the Library folder, in Finder, in the Go menu choose Library.

Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content.localized

This link explains how to transfer files from one user account to another

https://kb.iu.edu/d/amoe

Answer 2

Anonymous

Dear Bob,

Please advise how to proceed

Thanks

Answer 3

Anonymous

What have you here?:

…and does the behaviour change when you toggle this setting?

Answer 4

Thank you Jim,

I have managed to transfer my files to the new standard user account and deleted the former account

However, i have not run a robust disk maintenance utility or reinstalled the Mac OS. Should i be worried about it? I don't have the expertise to run a robust disk maintenance utility. Conversely, i updated the Mac Os system to 15.4 (Sequioa 15.4 (24E248)).

I save my files on my one drive, so the mac has doesn't have any files except downloads and apps. It's only a few months old and the warranty remains active until november this year. What would you advise i do?

Kind regards

Taremwa

Answer 5

Hello Jim,

I migrated to a new user and was working fine until this afternoon.

Suddenly, the problem has resurfaced. Kindly advise the best solution to this issue.

Regards

As Bob said, it's usually best to bear the pain and migrate to a new user account.

The first question that comes up is "What can make a user account go bad?" One thing I can think of that could cause this situation is a file system that needs repair. That leads to my first piece of advice: run a robust disk maintenance utility. Use it to verify the startup volume and all attached volumes. Before doing any additional troubleshooting, make sure the file system is OK. Another possibility is a bad memory block. Mac OS will automatically not use such a block, but anything stored in that memory segment is no longer available.

The second question is now that you have isolated the problem to a faulty Mac OS user account, "What should I do about it?"

You might reinstall Mac OS, but do NOT choose the erase option:

Reinstall macOS - Apple Support

Now decide what to do with the problem user account. You might try to fix it. If you are an expert and/or are lucky, one or two people who had a problem with their user account managed to figure out what was wrong and fixed it.

You know that everything works in a new user account. The installation of Office is fine. If it were me, I would migrate my files to the new user account and then delete the bad one in Mac OS System Preferences and be done with it.

Before transferring your document files, copy your user data from our old user account to the new one. Use the corresponding file locations when copying files to the new account’s locations. Here’s the default location of your templates and user files, but be aware that you may have set other locations in Word > Preferences > File Locations.

To get to the Library folder, in Finder, in the Go menu choose Library.

Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content.localized

This link explains how to transfer files from one user account to another

https://kb.iu.edu/d/amoe

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Edit directly in cell not working.

8 additional answers