Jan's Format & Arrange (97

Step-by-Step: Move

What you will learn:

to move by dragging to empty cells
to move by cut and paste
to move cells to non-empty cells
to move with right drag
to move with menu commands
to move a sheet

Start with: trips16.xls - Sheet1 (saved in previous lesson)

Whether you are moving a single cell, a range, a row, or a column, the same methods apply. The method you choose will depend on whether the destination is blank or already has data and on whether you want to replace the data or move it aside to insert the new data.

To practice moving data, you will first move the Total column away from the lower table. Then you will put the table back together again by moving its other columns. You will switch the positions of the Customer and Trip columns in the upper table and then of the Week and Date columns in the lower table. Your final move will be to move the sheet Tickets Sold Chart.

Move: Drag to empty cells

Select range D27:D37, the Total column of the second table. You will move these cells to underneath the Total Sale column of the first table, which is in Column E.
Drag the border of the selection to the right.
When the border of range E27:E37 is highlighted in gray, release the left mouse button to drop the cells.
All of the formulas still work! The cells in D27:D37 are now blank and are not formatted.

Move: Cut & Paste

Select range A27:C37 and cut it by clicking the Cut button or use the key combo CTRL + X. You will paste them so that the table is back together again.
Select cell B27, which will be the upper left cell for the new location.
Paste with the Paste button or use the key combo CTRL + V.
When you pasted, you pasted both the cell contents and the formats. The now-empty cells in column A have lost their formatting. So cool!

Move: Drag to nonempty cells

If necessary, click in a blank cell to deselect what you pasted.
Select range A4:A25, which is the column of Customers in the first table. You want to move this to the right so that it is between the columns for Trips and Number of People.
Drag the selection by its border to the right until the range B4:B25 has its border highlighted in gray. Release the mouse button.

Instead of the cells being dropped, you get a message asking if you want to replace the contents of the destination cells. No! You don't want to do that.

You see the plain gray message box when Office Assistant is not on.
Click on Cancel since you don't want to erase any data.
The selection goes back to its original place, but it is still selected.

Move: Right Drag

Right drag the selection by the border to the right until the range B4:B25 has its border highlighted.
Release the mouse button. A popup menu appears with many choices. The Shift commands will move what is currently in the destination cells, the Trips cells. But none of the choices will shift the Trips cells to the left where you want them! Only right and down are available. Rats! You will have to do this another way.
Select Cancel .
Clearly you must plan how you are going to drag cells so that the existing data can shift right or down. Let's try moving the Trips column instead of the Customer columns.
Select range B4:B25, which is the Trips column, and right drag to the left until the range A4:A25 has its border highlighted. Release the mouse button. The popup menu appears again.
Select Shift Right and Move . Hurrah! The Trips cells are moved to the left and then the Customers cells are shifted right. Just what you wanted.
The column widths did not change to match the new contents.
AutoFit columns A and B by double-clicking the right edge of the each of the column headings.

Move: Cut & Insert with menu

Select range C27:C37, the Date column in the second table. You want it to switch places with the Week column. That is, you want to insert the selected data and move the Week data over to the right.
Cut. The selected range now has a blinking border.
If you press ESC now, your data is not cut after all and the blinking border is removed.
Click on cell B27, the top of the Week column.
From the menu select Insert | Cut Cells . The Date column is now on the left, followed by the Week column.

If you forget to select a destination before you choose Insert | Cut Cells from the menu, you will confuse Excel and get an error message. None of the reasons listed in the message sound like what you did. Just click on OK and try again.
When you copy cells (instead of cut) and forget to choose a destination before choosing Insert | Copied Cells , you get a list of choices for what you can do.
Save as trips17.xls on your Class disk in the excel project3 folder.
How to handle a full disk
Preview and Print Sheet1 on one page in Portrait orientation.

Move: Sheet

Drag the tab for the sheet Tickets Sold Chart to the right. A small black arrowhead appears above the sheet tabs and the pointer now includes a sheet of paper icon.
When the arrow is at the far right of the last sheet tab, release the mouse button to drop the sheet.
Save. [trips17.xls]
How to handle a full disk

Format & Arrange: Move