Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 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: Pulling Formulas from a Worksheet.

Pulling Formulas from a Worksheet

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 1, 2025)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Excel allows you to display the formulas in a worksheet simply by making sure the Formulas check box is selected on the View tab of the Options dialog box. This can be a handy way to print a worksheet that shows the formulas used to create the worksheet.

However, this approach only works well if the formulas used in the worksheet are rather short. If the formulas are longer, then understanding a worksheet with formulas displayed can quickly become a bothersome chore.

One solution is to pull the formulas from Excel and place them in a program such as Word. Why Word? Because you can easily format text attributes (such as typeface and point size) to best display your formulas. You can also add additional text to explain the formulas, if desired.

The simplest way to get formulas from Excel into Word is to follow these steps:

  1. In Excel, choose Options from the Tools menu. Excel displays the Options dialog box.
  2. Make sure the View tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)
  3. Figure 1. The View tab of the Options dialog box.

  4. Ensure that the Formulas check box is selected.
  5. Click on OK. Excel should now be displaying formulas.
  6. Select the cells whose formulas you want to copy to Word.
  7. Press Ctrl+C to copy the cells to the Clipboard.
  8. Switch to Word.
  9. Position the insertion point where you want the information added.
  10. Choose Paste Special from the Edit menu. Word displays the Paste Special dialog box. (See Figure 2.)
  11. Figure 2. The Paste Special dialog box in Word.

  12. Choose the Unformatted Text option.
  13. Click on OK.

At this point your formulas are in Word, and you can do with them as you see fit. While this approach works well, it can become bothersome to do this over and over again if you have a large number of formulas to copy. If you are in such a situation, you would benefit from having a macro that actually pulled the formulas and placed them in a Word document for you. The following Excel macro will do just that:

Sub WriteFormulasToWord()
    Dim Wrd As New Word.Application
    Dim CellTxt As String
    Dim CellAddr As String
    Dim SRow As Long
    Dim SCol As Long

    Wrd.Visible = True
    Wrd.Documents.Add

    Wrd.Selection.TypeText Text:="List of the Formulas of Sheet """ _
      & ActiveSheet.Name & """ in Workbook """ _
      & ActiveWorkbook.Name & """."
    Wrd.Selection.TypeText Text:=vbCrLf & vbCrLf

    'Change the following line to pick the number of columns
    For SCol = 1 To 5
        'Change the following line to pick the number of rows
        For SRow = 1 To 10
            If Cells(SRow, SCol).HasFormula Then
                CellAddr = Chr(64 + SCol) & Trim(Str(SRow)) & vbTab
                CellTxt = ActiveSheet.Cells(SRow, SCol).Formula
                Wrd.Selection.TypeText Text:=CellAddr & CellTxt
                Wrd.Selection.TypeText Text:=vbCrLf
            End If
        Next SRow
        Wrd.Selection.TypeText Text:=vbCrLf
    Next SCol
End Sub

There are a couple of things to note in this macro. First of all, you can change the range of rows and columns over which the macro works by changing the noted For statements that use both SCol and SRow. In the example shown above, the macro pulls formulas from columns 1 through 5 (A through E) and rows 1 through 10.

In addition, this macro will not work properly unless you set up Excel macros to handle references to Word objects. You do that by following these steps within the VBA Editor:

  1. Choose References from the Tools menu. VBA displays the References dialog box. (See Figure 3.)
  2. Figure 3. The References dialog box.

  3. Scroll through the list of references until you see one called Microsoft Word Object Library. (There may be a version number included in the reference name, such as Microsoft Word 11.0 Object Library.)
  4. Make sure the check box to the left of the object library is selected.
  5. Click on OK.

An advantage to using a macro to actually pull your formulas is that you can customize exactly what is placed in the Word document. In the case of this macro, the address of the cell is inserted, followed by a tab character, and then the actual formula. You could just as easily change the information inserted to be anything you need in your particular instance.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the ExcelTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3190) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Pulling Formulas from a Worksheet.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Checking for Proper Entry of Array Formulas

Excel allows you to enter two different types of formulas in a cell: A regular formula or an array formula. If you need ...

Discover More

Tombstone Date Math

Doing math with dates is easy in Excel. Doing math with old dates, such as those you routinely encounter in genealogy, is ...

Discover More

Printing Documents without Markup

If you have a document with Track Changes turned on, you can accumulate quite a bit of "markup" in it. Here's how you can ...

Discover More

Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2019 For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Excluding Values from Averaging

Calculating an average of a group of numbers is easy. What if you want to exclude a couple of the numbers from the group ...

Discover More

Referencing the Last Six Items in a Formula

If you have a list of data in a column, you may want to determine an average of whatever the last few items are in the ...

Discover More

Maintaining Text Formatting in a Lookup

Want to maintain the formatting used in one cell when you use formulas to reference that text in another cell? The answer ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 1 + 4?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.