Freeze a result with Paste values
A formula is a live thing: it keeps recalculating from its inputs. Usually that is the entire point. Occasionally it is a problem. You want to record what the figure was at a moment in time, or you are about to delete the rows the formula depends on.
Copy, then Paste values, writes the result and drops the formula. The cell stops being a calculation and becomes a number.
Use it deliberately and rarely. A spreadsheet where somebody pasted values over the working model is a spreadsheet nobody can check, and that is the most common way a file stops being trustworthy.
C2 holds a formula. Copy C2, then use Paste values to put the frozen result into D2, D2 should end up holding the number 1740, not a formula.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Region | Units | Live total | Snapshot | ||
| 2 | North | 480 | 1740 | |||
| 3 | South | 390 | ||||
| 4 | East | 420 | ||||
| 5 | West | 450 | ||||
| 6 | ||||||
| 7 | ||||||
| 8 |
Click a cell and type. Enter commits, Tab moves right, F2 edits in place, Ctrl+Z undoes. Drag the small square at the corner of a cell to fill. Ctrl+Enter checks your answer.