# Why is “Evaluatable” unchecked by default in cell option but cell still execute?

In my Mathematica, all my cells have the option "Evaluatable" unchecked by default

Thus, if I want to prevent some cells to be executed, it is not possible because Evaluatable is already unchecked (but cells are still executed).

Why is it so ? Is it a strange comportment with my mathematica or there is something I misunderstood ?

As the comment from @b3m2a1 suggested, this is what there is in the cell when I open it with SHIFT CTRL E :

    In[128]:= Cell[BoxData[
RowBox[{"1", "+", "1"}]], "Input",
CellChangeTimes->{{3.706802150710745*^9, 3.7068021512522154*^9}}]

Out[128]= Cell[BoxData["2"], "Output",
CellChangeTimes->{3.706802151784894*^9}]


I just wrote the code 1+1 and pressed enter (all of my cells have evaluatable unchecked so I wrote the simplest code to show it).

• Would you mind going to one of the cells where Evaluatable is supposed to be false, opening the cell expression via Shift-Ctrl-E, and copying everything that's in there into a code block in your question? That would, I think, help people understand what's going on. – b3m2a1 Jun 18 '17 at 19:02
• I edited. Thanks ! – StarBucK Jun 18 '17 at 19:18
• What does CurrentValue[{StyleDefinitions, "Input", Evaluatable}] return? – Carl Woll Jun 18 '17 at 19:25
• CurrentValue[{StyleDefinitions, "Input", Evaluatable}] returns True – StarBucK Jun 18 '17 at 19:28
• If I select Input cell bracket the Evaluatable in menu is checked. – Kuba Jun 18 '17 at 21:03

Your question isn't completely clear, but I suppose that you are confused by the fact that "Output" cells have Evaluatable -> False but despite this they can be evaluated when you put the cursor inside such a cell and press Shift+Enter:

CurrentValue[{StyleDefinitions, "Output", Evaluatable}]

False


The reason is that such cells are auto-converted into "Input" cells when you edit them. But when you select the "Output" cell bracket and press Shift+Enter nothing happens because you haven't edited the cell and it has Evaluatable -> False`.

• Aaaaaah you are right !! In fact the input line has Evaluatable true but not the whole bracket which contains the input and the output !! I used to select the whole stuff. In fact I want to disable execution of a large part of code. Do you know if there is a way of selecting ONLY input cells in a huge bracket ? Because I would like to disable the evaluatable option on the inputs only – StarBucK Jun 19 '17 at 12:10
• Well in fact If i click on evaluatable a first time, it will make the output evaluatable as the input already is. If I click a second time it will make unevaluatable both. But I would like to only apply this option on the input parts (so I need to select only input of my big bracket) – StarBucK Jun 19 '17 at 12:13
• I'm glad that my guess is right. :) This probably can be done with a custom Palette. I don't think this is possible using only FrontEnd's menu items. – Alexey Popkov Jun 19 '17 at 12:17
• Ok ok thank you. Yes well done you had the good intuition ;) – StarBucK Jun 19 '17 at 12:18