Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2002 and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Turning Off Error Checking.
While you have Excel 2002 or Excel 2003 open, it is constantly checking in the background for potential errors in your worksheets. If an error is located (or, at the least, what Excel thinks is an error), then the cell is "flagged" with a small green triangle in the upper-left corner of the cell.
If you don't want Excel to check for errors, you can turn the feature off by following these steps in Excel 2002 or Excel 2003:

Figure 1. The Error Checking tab of the Options dialog box.
Any existing green triangles should disappear, and Excel stops checking for errors.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2369) applies to Microsoft Excel 2002 and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Turning Off Error Checking.
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