# How do I toggle between the program snippet form of a displayformula and the human readable form of the equation?

I have a DisplayFormulaNumbered cell in my Mathematica notebook. If I use the Cell | Convert To menu item to convert the cell to Standard or Traditional Form, the formula is now rendered as a program snippet. For example:

TextCell[RawBoxes[Cell[BoxData[FormBox[RowBox[{RowBox[{RowBox[{RowBox[{"L","\[CenterDot]",RowBox[{RowBox[{"I","'"}],"'"}]}],RowBox[{"(","t",")"}]}],"+",RowBox[{RowBox[{"R","\[CenterDot]",RowBox[{"I","'"}]}],RowBox[{"(","t",")"}]}],"+",RowBox[{FractionBox["1","C"],"\[CenterDot]",RowBox[{"I","(","t",")"}]}]}],"=",RowBox[{RowBox[{"V","'"}],RowBox[{"(","t",")"}]}]}],TraditionalForm]],FormatType->"TraditionalForm"]]]


Is there a way to toggle this cell to the human readable form I started with?

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Might it be that you used Show Expression by accident? You can undo that by using it again. –  Sjoerd C. de Vries Feb 11 at 19:28
Not in this case. The steps to reproduce are: 1. Add a DisplayFormulaNumbered cell. 2. Ctrl-F9 and enter formula 3. Cell | Convert To TraditionalForm 4. The equation is now converted to an expression. 5. Cell | Show Expression shows an even longer expression. The only solution I have found is delete the cell. Re-enter the formula - and do not try any formatting or Cell Conversion. –  user1585715 Feb 11 at 19:56
I get the same but am wondering why you want to convert to TraditionalForm when you are using DisplayFormula style plus Ctrl-9 ...since this combination gives you traditional form equations. –  Mike Honeychurch Feb 11 at 20:13
I was experimenting - trying to get a publication quality form of the formula. The equation is converted to an expression when using Cell Convert StandardForm or TraditionalForm. I found that there was no way to get back to the human readable form after Cell Convert. –  user1585715 Feb 11 at 20:34
You can get publication quality formulas without using traditional form ...which apart from anything else render equations in bold by default. –  Mike Honeychurch Feb 12 at 8:49
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If you evaluate your TextCell expression you will get
@user1585715. I got the output I posted above by evaluating your TextCell expression in an Input cell, which has the necessary Evaluatable property. Did the cell that you evaluated have that property? –  m_goldberg Feb 12 at 14:38
@user1585715. Try evaluating the TextCell expression in an Input cell and then copy and paste the output into your DisplayFormula cell. –  m_goldberg Feb 12 at 14:54