Formula Parse Error in Plain Text Cells in Google Sheets

[Anton_Dickens]

Hi everyone,

I’m having a little bother with the Google Sheet behind my app.

I have a Notes column which is a long text column. The data goes to a column in my Google Sheet which is set as plain text. The problem is that if any of our users enter “+” as part of what they write (and I’m sure other characters Sheets identifies as parts of formulas), it returns a formula parse error. So in the notes they might write “+ $500 for traffic control”. Is there any further way to tell Sheets to ignore this and treat all characters as plain text? Or do I have to tell the users to avoid these characters?

Many thanks
Anton