Excell Formula Help

I'm new to building formulas and need some help. WHen I'm done building my formula the only thing that displays in the cell is the formula itself, not the results.


cell L2 contents: =IF(F2="",H2,F2)

what I'm attempting to do:
if F2 is has no data, copy the contents of cell H2 into cell L2
if cell F2 has data, copy the contents of cell F2 into cell L2

according to what I've read this formula should work. But when I hit <return> after the ), nothing happens. The contents of cell L2 shows my formula.

I hope I'm explaining this correctly. THanks

 

Tools - options - view - make sure there is no tick in "Formulas"

 

The cell housing the formula maybe formatted as text. Click in the cell, go to Edit/Replace and replace = with =.

 

The formula works great here, however, if you use the "spacebar" to blank the cell, remember that it will return the "blank" to L2. If you select the cell and press "Delete", the formula will pick up H2. Just an FYI.

 

I did have the formula ticked (did this while trying to fix my problem). Un-ticking fixed the issue with none of my formulas working but not the formula in the spreadsheet I was working on. THe cell I was writing the formula in was formated as "text". Changed the formatting and issue resolved. THank-you both so very much.