Before you can do anything in a spreadsheet, you must master the most basic skill - navigating the document. For a spreadsheet, much of your navigation is done by selecting the correct cells.
Selecting parts of an Excel spreadsheet is a little different from selecting parts of a Word document. Many of the methods are quite like what you do in Word tables, but often easier.
You will learn a lot of the keyboard and mouse methods in this section. For ease of reference later, in the Appendix there are links to several reminder tables.
No Undo for Selecting: The Undo list does NOT including selecting cells or ranges! That means if you accidentally lose your
selection, Undo won't select again for you.
The mouse pointer has a number of shapes in Excel. The shape indicates what the effect will
be of your mouse actions and keystrokes. As you move the pointer around, it may flicker from one shape to another. The examples below were taken from Excel 2010, but Excel 2013 and 2016 are the same except for color differences.
Shape: | Used to: |
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Select a cell or range |
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Drag a selection to new location. The pointer must be over the border of the selection to change to the Move shape. |
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Fill (copies values into the cells you drag across) or fill series (copies a pattern of values, such as filling in the days of the week or months of the year). |
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Entering or editing data. The cursor (vertical line inside the cell) blinks. |
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Resize column |
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Resize row |
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Select whole column |
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Select whole row |
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Copy cell formats with Format Painter |