
Then hover the mouse pointer over the edge of the selected cells until it changes to a crosshair. Give this a try by highlighting a group of cells. Many users don’t realize that you can move cells or ranges just by clicking and dragging. Copy Using Drag and DropĪnother neat time-saver is copying a group of cells by dragging and dropping them across the sheet. This technique to fill cells down is fast and easy and saves a lot of time when you’re dealing with extensive spreadsheets. Instead, select the first cell, then hold down the Shift key and hover the house over the lower-right handle on the first cell until you see two parallel lines appear.ĭouble click on this double-line handle to fill to the bottom of the column with data to the left.
DIRECTIONS TO COPY FAST UPDATE
This will fill in all cells and update cell references in the formulas accordingly.īut if you have thousands of rows, dragging all the way to the bottom can be difficult. The typical way people do this is to click and hold the handle on the bottom left of the first cell and drag it to the bottom of the range. If you’ve entered a formula into a top cell next to a range of cells already filled out, there’s an easy way to paste the same formula into the rest of the cells. Note: Pasting the cells into a column where an entire second row is hidden will actually hide the second visible cell you’ve pasted. Click on the first cell where you want to paste, and press Control+V. In the Go To Special window, enable Visible cells only. Then in the Home menu, select Find & Select, and then select Go To Special from the dropdown menu. If you only want to copy and paste the visible cells, select the cells. If you select and paste those cells, you’ll see the hidden cell appear in the range where you paste them. Avoid Copying Hidden CellsĪnother common annoyance when copying and pasting in Excel is when hidden cells get in the way when you copy and paste. This procedure may seem like a few extra steps, but it’s the easiest to override the updated references in copied formulas. Once the copy and replace are done, both ranges will contain the same formulas without shifting references. This time, type # in the Find what field, and = in the Replace with field. With all cells still highlighted, repeat the search and replace procedure above. Then hold down the Control key and select all of the cells in the pasted column. Hold down the Shift key and highlight all cells in one column. Next, highlight all of the cells in both columns. Copy all of these cells and paste them into the cells where you want to paste them. This will convert all formulas to text with the # sign at the front. In the Find and Replace window, type = in the Find what field, and # in the Replace with field. Select the Home menu, click on the Find & Select icon in the Editing group, and select Replace. Highlight all of the cells that contain the formulas you want to copy. You can paste the formula cells but keep the original referenced cells in those formulas by following the trick below. The only problem with strictly pasting formulas is that Excel will automatically update all the referenced cells relative to where you’re pasting them. If you want to copy and paste formula cells but keep the formulas, you can do this as well. Copy Formulas Without Changing References

This removes all of the relative formula complexity when you normally copy and paste formula cells in Excel.

This will paste only the values (not the formulas) into the destination cells. Select the Values icon from the pop-up menu. Right-click the first cell in the range where you want to paste the values. Right-click any of the cells and select Copy from the pop-up menu.

Select the cells with the values you want to copy. You can prevent this from happening and copy only the actual values using a simple trick. This is because, when you paste formula results, the formula automatically updates relative to the cell you’re pasting it into. One of the most annoying things about copying and pasting in Excel is when you try to copy and paste the results of Excel formulas. Whether you want to copy and paste individual cells, rows or columns, or entire sheets, the following 15 tricks will help you do it faster and more efficiently.
