The green triangles that appear in Microsoft Excel cells indicate potential errors or issues with the data in the cells. In this lesson, you will learn how to turn off green triangles, which sometimes show up in the left corner of a cell. It will make your spreadsheet more professional and save you a lot of time.
About green triangles
There is the possibility of an error in a cell. There are several reasons why these green triangles may appear, including invalid data types, inconsistent formulas, or data validation errors. You can determine the cause of the green triangles. You can do this by clicking on a cell with a green triangle, and then clicking on the "Error Alert" button in the "Formulas" tab. This will give you more information about what is causing the error.
How to prevent green triangles?
Here are the steps to prevent the green triangles in Microsoft Excel:
- Correct the data: If the green triangles are indicating an invalid data type, you can change the data type to a valid one. If they are indicating a formula error, you can correct the formula. If they are indicating a data validation error, you can correct the data to match the validation rules.
- Clear errors: If you have already corrected the errors, you can clear the green triangles by selecting the cells with the green triangles, and then clicking on the "Clear Validation" button in the "Data" tab.
How to remove green triangles?
But what if they show and you are sure that everything is OK? You should remove these green triangles.
This is a sample report. It isn't professional because of these triangles.
To remove green triangles from your spreadsheet, go to Ribbon. Click File > Options.
Next, select Formulas in the left sidebar.
To turn green triangles off, untick the checkbox Enable background error checking.
Green triangles disappeared from your report.
TIP: How to disable checking rules in Excel
You don't have to disable Error checking at all. You can also disable some checking rules, e.g., Formulas referring to empty cells.
Further reading: How to prevent closing Excel? How To Send Email From Excel? How to Get Data from another Sheet?