If you want to see if you have formulas in cells
--   select all cells with Ctrl+A in versions before Excel 2003
       if you are using Excel 2003 the gray button will work in this case
--   Ctrl+G (Edit, GoTo),   Special,   Formulas

You can do the same thing with a macro, and something similar
with Conditional Formatting.

If you are entering    1000/10    into a cell as a formula  instead   of   =1000/10
then you are using transition options to emulate Lotus 1-2-3 and are
not really using Excel properly.    This would put you way out of synch with
help from others in the Excel newsgroups.

Now if you look at your last part of your restatement,  it appears in conflict with
the first part of your restatement,  so I will reiterate some points of
text entry in cells, even though it sounds like that is not what you state
in the first sentences.

There are some minor differences between pasting into the cell and pasting
into the formula bar in that there is no adjustment of addresses if you paste
into the formula bar.   You may be typing in a space, or  pasting in a Char(160)
character (non breaking space character which is   in HTML).

Some things to look for if you have problems with text vs numbers
1)  see if       format, cells,     shows Text  or a Number format
2)  see what you get with   =ISTEXT(A1)  and with  =LEN(A1)
3)  a hint of whether a cell is text is if left justified,  and a number if right
    justified,  but justification can be overridden or hard to tell,  you really
    need to check  =ISTEXT(A1)   or   =ISNUMBER(A1)
4)  check that you have calculation as automatic -- tools, options, calculation
     otherwise things don't change immediately,  you may have to close workbook,
     or use F9  for recalculations to actually take effect.
5)  check that transition (Lotus 1-2-3)  options are not on -- tools, options, transition
6)  see http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/join.htm#debugformat
---
HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel    [site changed  Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages:  http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page:        http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm