Chronic "formula becomes text" issue in Excel Tables feature, when a GENERAL formatted formula refers to at TEXT formatted column

Thanks, @Liora, I appreciate the corroboration. Ironically, I don't have direct access to submit a support ticket, I'm just an Excel power user, on days where I'm flattering myself, using my employer's Office 365 subscription, and I don't at the moment have an Office 365 subscription at home. (I'm in IT, but not part of our Office support team).

I only have "Contact Support" as an option on my organization's Help ribbon, no "Provide Feedback", so I can't exactly contact support conveniently, without wondering if my report will lead to my employer getting a bill from Microsoft. ("Contact Support" looks a little like I'd just get vague suxty-sux percent correct AI answer.) ;-)

If you have the ability to contact support, please feel free to do so on, and list me as a co-author. ;0) (The same request applies to anyone who might do this.)

(dup post, removed/edited. This site doesn't seem to like people using Firefox)

Dear @J M,

I hope you’re having a good day 

Thank you for taking the time to document the behavior so clearly and provide specific reproduction conditions.

After reviewing your description, I performed some testing on my side using Excel Tables with a Text-formatted source column and a General-formatted formula column. During testing, I was able to encounter behavior that appeared similar to what you described, where a formula within a Table was displayed as text rather than being evaluated after editing.

What I found particularly interesting is the same observation you highlighted: the behavior appears to be associated with Excel Tables rather than ordinary worksheet ranges. In my own testing, I was unable to reproduce it reliably outside of a Table structure.

I also spent some time researching Microsoft's documentation and existing discussions. While there is a significant amount of information describing how to recover when a formula is interpreted as text, I was not able to find any Microsoft article, KB, or known-issues document that specifically explains the scenario you described.

At this time, I have not found any publicly documented Microsoft explanation that clearly identifies the root cause of this behavior, nor have I found documentation confirming whether it is an intended Table behavior, an edge case, or a product defect.

From my perspective, the most significant finding in your investigation is that the issue appears to be limited to Tables and does not reproduce in a normal range. That suggests the behavior may be related to how Excel Tables handle calculated columns, formula propagation, or data-type inference rather than to the formula function itself.

If you have access to Microsoft Support, I actually think this would be a good candidate for a support case. You've already done much of the difficult work by narrowing the issue down to a specific set of conditions and providing reproducible steps. A small sample workbook together with the reproduction steps and your Excel build number would give Support the best opportunity to determine whether this is an undocumented limitation, expected behavior, or a bug that should be reviewed by the Excel engineering team.

You can raise support ticket from Microsoft 365 Admin Center>Support>Help & Support.   

For reference:  Get support | Microsoft Docs    

You may also wish to submit feedback directly from Excel via: Help > Feedback

Thank you again for sharing such a thoughtful investigation. Even though I was unable to find a definitive Microsoft explanation for the underlying cause, I think your findings are valuable because they help move the discussion beyond the usual workaround-based answers and focus on understanding the behavior itself.

I also hope this thread helps other users who encounter similar symptoms recognize that the issue may be related to Excel Tables and formatting interactions, rather than simply a formula-entry mistake.

Warm regards,  

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