I’m scratching my head over this one. Is there a way to put some temporary text in Google Sheets cells? You know, like a hint that goes away when someone types something else in.
I’ve been looking for an answer for ages now. Tried a bunch of stuff, mostly messing with conditional formatting, but no luck so far.
Anyone got any cool tricks up their sleeve for this? It’d be super helpful for my project. Thanks a ton in advance!
P.S. If you’ve got a neat workaround or a hidden feature I missed, I’d love to hear it. This community always comes through with the good stuff!
I’ve encountered this issue in a collaborative project before and managed to find a workaround that might help. In our case we used Google Sheets’ data validation feature to display temporary text. First, you select the cells you want to add the hint to and then go to Data → Data validation. Under the criteria you configure it so that when the cell is empty it shows a help text as a warning. As soon as someone starts typing, the hint naturally disappears. I also tested a custom formula approach for placeholder text, but that method turned out to be more involved than the data validation trick.
hey, have u tried using comments? just right-click the cell, hit ‘insert comment’ and type ur hint there. it shows up as a lil orange triangle in the corner. not exactly what u asked for but kinda works the same way. hope this helps!
One solution I’ve found effective is using Google Sheets’ built-in Notes feature. Select the cell, right-click, and choose ‘Insert note’. Type your temporary text there. It shows up as a small triangle in the corner of the cell, and users can see the text when hovering over it. This keeps the actual cell content clean while providing guidance.
Another method is utilizing named ranges with custom functions. Create a named range for your hint texts, then use a custom function to display the hint if the cell is empty. It’s a bit more advanced but offers more flexibility in implementation.
Both approaches keep your sheet tidy and provide the temporary text functionality you’re after without interfering with data entry.