How to permanently halt/kill a running calc/reformat?

Hey guys, so here's my dilemma:

I highlighted a large block of cells that were marked with the informational warnings (green triangle) "Number stored as text". Since I want them to be stored as numbers I clicked on "Convert to number" in the context menu of the little green triangle. I should have known better but, long story short, it's taking a really long time to complete the reformat. I want to kill it but I can only seem to pause it.

Here's what I've tried so far:

1. Esc and/or Ctrl-Break - Successfully interrupts the reformat
> Clicked 'End' - Reformat resumes instead of stopping

2. Ctrl-Break again
> Clicked 'Debug' - Debug window opens
> Clicked Reset button - Reformat resumes

3. Ctrl-Break again
> Clicked 'Debug' - Debug window opens
> Clicked 'Save' hoping to save my work and then kill process via ctrl-alt-del - Excel: "Cannot save while debugging"
> No choice but to resume and wait (going on 2 hours now and killing my day not to mention my deadline)

Does anyone know of a way to actually cancel the currently running calc rather than simply interrupt it? I've been querying the forum and google all morning without success. Thanks in advance!

Well, it finished after nearly 4 hours. I was just about ready to kill excel and restart even though it meant I'd lose my work. Would still love to know if there's a way to completely cancel a running function but for now back to work

Out of curiosity - how many cells were involved?

Originally Posted by Cutter

Out of curiosity - how many cells were involved?

I don't have it in front of me right now but somewhere in the ballpark of 3000. However, there are about 30-some-odd other cells that reference these and were being updated each time a value was changed to number format.

Originally Posted by martindwilson

ah top tip,save workbook before doing things!or leave auto save set

Good tip and one I try to follow. In this case it was nothing major, just changing the format to number so I didn't think much of it at first. By the time my brain thought the consequences through it was too late and my finger had already clicked lol