Typed formula comes out grey, and does not work

[pchu]

Has anyone experienced this before?  The variable I type in comes out as grey, or grey out, and when you try to use it in a formula, it does not work?

My worksheet was working fine before, but when I tried to do some "experiementing" with trying to disable certain regions, or certain areas, I get this problem.  I am not sure how to turn it back.

I did find a "cure" in creating a completely new file, tested it to see that the variable and formulas show up as solid black and worked.  I then copied the entireccontents of the "grey formula" file to the new one, and the problems seems to be resolved,

Not sure what is happening.  Thanks for any feedback so I know how to resolve it later if it shows up again.

Dan

[vlehner]

to solve your problem, we need the worksheet.

Use "advanced Editor" at the right top and attach your file please.

Thank you, Volker

[Werner_E]

Guess you are talking about Prime. right?

So not the whole region is gray, just one variable name?

You sure know that you can re-enable a region by just again clicking on "Disable Region".

I agree that it probably would help if you attach the worksheet with the disabled variable and also state which version of Prime you are using.

[pchu]

Thank you so much for those early responses.

Here is a file I created from my original file to show what I am talking about.  As you can see, all the variables and formulas are greyed out.  It started to happened when I was trying out the "Disable Region" feature.  How do I get it back to "normal"?

Do I have to highlight the entire worksheet, and click on "Disable Region", maybe "Enable Region" again?

I think all the variables and formulas for the entire file started greying out after that.

I am using MathCAD Prime 3.1, and my company has the full licensed copy.

[Werner_E · Accepted solution]

When I load your files i see the grey variables.

The reason seems to be that automatic calculation is turned off.

Go to menu ribbon "Calculation" and click in the leftmost button ("automatic calculations")

When Í do that all calculations are black again an live working.

[pchu]

Thanks for the suggestion, WE. It is a good one.  For some reason, if I try to "Enable Region" on the original file, it does not seem to work.  However, when I transferred the entire file to a new clean sheet file, the variables and formulas are still greyed out, but I am able to "Enable Region" them, then.  It is not just one variable, or one formula, that is greyed out.  It is the entire file!  And there can be up to a hundred variables and formulas in all, so it is a tedious, but doable, task to enable all the variables and formulas again.

Anyone have a better suggestion on how to do it?  And why wasn't I able to do it in the original file?

I am using MathCAD Prime 3.1, fully licensed copy with all features available.

[Werner_E]

Anyone have a better suggestion on how to do it?  And why wasn't I able to do it in the original file?

Because enabling or disabling a region has no effect if automatic calculation is turned off (see my comment above).

Nevertheless if you look closely - disabling a region in this calculation turned off mode makes its grey even a bit lighter - the expression gets more pale.

BTW - disabling auto calc does not make all those regions gray immediately. It happens later, when you change something in the sheet which would make a recalculation necessary which can't be done because you turned of auto calc. So its an indicator, that the values in the sheet might not be consistent.

[pchu]

Thank you so much, WE.  You hit the nail right on the head!  Thanks for helping out.  Sometimes, something as simple as the solution you proposed can be overlooked, and the user is left exasperated, not knowing what to do due to being not too familiar with the software,  Have a great day, you and everyone else who tried to help.