Oh, Excel. I could
wax philosophical on the joys of your use all day, but I shall limit myself to
one paragraph. Figuring out how hard I
need to work in each of my college classes to get that ‘A’ using several
embedded if/then statements…planning my budget for the next 6 years and beyond
with a simple three column worksheet linked to four tabs filled to the brim
with formulae and calculations…click dragging numbers from one to 10,000 just
for funsies. Excel, I heart you so.
But you, dear reader, don’t want to hear about my love
affair with computer software. You want
to know all the tricks I have to make Excel fun! You want step by step, easy to follow
instructions on functions you know have to exist, but have no idea how to
figure them out! You want…me to get on
with it already, I’m sure.
So, without further ado, your:
EXCEL TIP OF THE DAY!
When a cell is highlighted, your cursor can have one of
three looks:
- White plus sign. This occurs in most of the cell. If you click while the cursor looks like this, the cell will be selected, and if you click again, you can type directly in the cell.
- Black plus sign. This occurs on the bottom right corner of the cell(s), where the little box is in the cell highlighting. If you click, hold, and drag, any contents you have in the cell will be copied to the cells you drag to. NOTE: If you highlight two or more cells with a sequence in them, ie 1 2, or Jan Feb, the sequence will continue in the cells you drag to.
- Black plus sign with arrow on all ends. This occurs when you place you cursor on any of the black highlighting around your selected cell(s). If you click, hold and drag the cells from here, any contents you have in the cell will be moved to your new destination, indicated by a pixilated highlighting around the new destination cell.
One of the amazing things about the copying sequences drag
is you can use it to copy formulas, in say a budget, using cell
references. See next week for tips on
cell dragging with those references!
My other favorite trick on this topic? When it's a black plus on the lower right corner, double-click and it will fill-down for as long as there is data in an adjacent column. Huge time saver for me!
ReplyDeleteI share your <3 for Excel and look forward to more posts on this topic!