Many cell formula improvements are implemented in Origin 2026 to help Excel users to bring their formulas into Origin. Users can now check and edit formula cells to do calculations, graphing, statistics, analysis, etc. all in one place.
Bring In Cell Formula from Excel Into Origin
If you have calculations set up in Excel, use Ctrl+` to show the cell formulas before copying data. Then, in Origin, right-click and choose Paste (Keep Excel Formula) from the context menu.
Please note
- This context menu only shows if when you copying formulas from Excel with the formulas showing.
- This context menu only shows in E, J and C Origin. It doesn’t show in German Origin because German Excel localizes functions. You will get a lot of error when pasting (Keep Excel Formula) into Origin.
And this is supported for Google Sheets as well. Again, show the formula in Google Sheets, Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste.
If there are many sheets with formulas in Excel, instead of copying and pasting data into Origin, you can opt use the Excel connector in Origin 2026 to import data with formulas kept.
More Excel syntaxes and function names are supported in Origin 2026 such as Average, Rand, Stdev.s, Stdev.P, A:A, TRUE, FALSE, etc.
Highlight Bad Formula with Different Color and # Notation
Origin added Ctrl+E to highlight all cells with formula in green to help user located all cells that contain a formula. In Origin 2026, good formula cells and bad formula cells use different colors.
- cells with good formulas will show in green with calculated value showing.
- cells with bad formulas will show in different colors with error code to help debug what’s wrong.
Note: Ctrl+` will also color bad formula with the same color scheme.
Here is a table of error code and explanation
Find and Replace Formula Cells Only
Find in Sheet (Ctrl+F) only searched text and calculated values in the worksheet in previous versions. It has been improved in Origin 2026 to search what’s being displayed. So if you want to search strings in cell formulas, use Ctrl+` to show formulas first and then search.
The Find and Replace dialog (Ctrl+H) added a Search Only Inside Cell Formulas checkbox in Origin 2026 to find and replace formula cells only.
For example, the following project contains multiple workbooks with automobile data for each year. Cell formula is set up to calculate Max value of Power, 0~60 mph, Weight, … columns and its corresponding Make. Use the Find and Replace dialog to replace Max with Min function in the cell formula to find the minimum value of each column and corresponding Make.
Edit Bad Formula
Choose Edit: Edit Bad Formula… menu to edit certain types of bad formulas.
- Replace such cells with number, string, or blank
- Prefix formula cell with some symbol for further editing later
Clear Worksheet but Keep Formula
A new checkbox is added in the Clear Worksheet… dialog. By checking it, you can keep formulas and remove all data cells. Then use such worksheet as a template for future use.
Convert Formula to Values
Sometimes you may want to convert all cell formula into final values and before sharing your work with others. You can select cell(s) or columns and use the newly added mini toolbar button to do so.
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