Hi Reader,

Welcome to the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #296, your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form!

A big thank you to this week's sponsors who help keep this newsletter free to read:

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➜ News

I.
​We can now filter merged cells in Google Sheets. Hopefully, this is not something you do regularly, but good to know it's now possible.

​Read more >> (second story)

II.
​Eventually, systems outgrow spreadsheets, either because of the complexity or sheer size of the data.

This story tells how the Williams F1 Racing team used a gigantic Excel spreadsheet to manage the parts list for their F1 racing cars.

In preparation for the 2024 racing season however, they modernized their operations and upgraded away from spreadsheets.

​Read the story here >>​

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➜ Google Sheets Tip #296: The Big Reveal! A.k.a. how to show formulas

In this tip, we look at two methods to view formulas in our Sheets.

Of course, we can always see any individual formula in the formula bar above our grid:

In this case, we are looking at a CHOOSE function.

But sometimes it's helpful to see multiple formulas and know where they are in our Sheet.

For that, we have two techniques at our disposal:

1. Show Formulas

To show all the formulas, go to the menu:

View > Show > Formulas

or use the shortcut Ctrl + `

In our Sheet, all the formulas will now show up (you might need to resize the cells to see them fully):

To return to the results, uncheck Formulas in the View menu again.

Easy!

2. Show Formulas with the FORMULATEXT function

In addition to the menu option, we have a function dedicated to revealing formulas!

Suppose you have a formula in cell C2, then use this formula to reveal that formula:

=FORMULATEXT(C2)

In our Sheet, it looks something like this:

The nice thing about FORMULATEXT is that we can combine it with other formulas.

For example, we can add a checkbox to cell D1 and an IF statement to toggle the formula views on/off!

The formula in cell D2 in this example is:

=IF( $D$1 , FORMULATEXT(C2) , )

Happy Formula Auditing!

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Have a great week!

Cheers,
Ben

P.S. The Gmail feature we all need​