CELL function and multilanguage user

Question

I am currently programming a worksheet in excel and some of the formulas process the filename of the workbook. I am using the "CELL" function and, as expected,, it is returning me the name of workbook when the argument is "filename".

Since "filename" is a string, when I am using excel with different language packs it is not automatically translated and the CELL function is returning an error.

Is there any strategy (or alternative formula) to make the CELL function working with any language?

Answer 1

Hello,

as far as I understand, if the first argument of the Cell function is in English, then it should work in all locales.

The problem may be that you are just changing the language pack, but not the locale (regional settings) of the computer. That may not be sufficient to trigger the internal translation of the English parameter into the respective language one.

Answer 2

Yes, that is to be expected. The localized version of the text strings for the Cell() function will not work in the English locales, but if you use the English text strings, these should work in all other language locales.

If that helped, please mark it as the answer, so others can find it more easily.

Answer 3

I had a similar problem with the "TEXT" function. I formatted it in the following way:

=TEXT(NOW(),"dd/mm/yyyy")

but it is not working on the italian version of Excel. I have to change the format into "gg/mm/aaaa". Is there any way of overtaking this issue?

Answer 4

Thank you Teylyn, it works. Actually I misreported my issue: I was starting from an excel sheet designed with another version of Excel (in Italian) and “nomefile” was not working with the English version. Now I checked that using “filename” instead, it works also with the Italian version.