How can I directly edit a Cell expression?

As described in section 2.10.1 of The Mathematica Book, each cell is an expression. If you wish to edit the expression directly, you can use the menu command Format > Show Expression.

For example, the cell

will be changed to

Cell[BoxData[
    RowBox[{
      SuperscriptBox["x", "2"], "+", 
      FractionBox["1", "x"]}]], "Input",
  FontColor->RGBColor[1, 0, 0]]

This will allow you to directly control the formatting of the cell contents as well as the options of the cells. Once the changes have been made, the same menu item will return the cell to its normal form. If there are any syntax errors after editing the cell, a warning will appear.

View an Online Tutorial (Flash Format)

Download this FAQ as a Mathematica 5.2 Notebook

Questions or comments? Send email to support@wolfram.com.