—another classic spreadsheet indicator. Seeing those pound (or hash, or number sign, if you live in the UK and other distant locales) signs in a cell means the cell contains a number that is too long for its current width—and you see pound signs there instead of the scientific notation when you actively narrow the cell. The solution: do an Autofit.
Relocating the Data: Copying and Moving
Now here’s another indispensible form of data entry you need to know about, though it isn’t generally characterized in those terms—copying and moving data.
After all, when you copy data you’re reproducing, or entering, more of it, and Excel’s copying options are several, and don’t always resemble the sorts of things you’d do in Word. Let’s explore some of the permutations.
We’ll start of course with the basics. Say I want to copy values or text—and let’s begin with one cell’s worth of data:
• Click the cell whose data you want to copy.
• Click the Copy button in the Clipboard group in the Home tab (or its time-honored keyboard equivalent, Ctrl-C. Ignore the button’s drop-down arrow for now). Note how the cell border is suddenly enlivened by what are called marching ants (I’m not kidding), as seen in Figure 2–27:
Figure 2–27. Text, as copied
• Click the destination cell—the cell to which you want to copy, and
• Click the Paste button to the left of the Copy button in the Clipboard group, or Ctrl-V (yes, there are other paste options, but we’re in introductory mode). Or—
and this option is exceedingly easy to overlook—press Enter. The item is duplicated.
Note as well, however, that even though you’ve done your job, the marching ants continue to troop around the cell border—at least if you click Copy or press Ctrl-V (but not if you press Enter). That’s not a cue for an exterminator, but rather an indicator to the effect that you can paste the cell again to other cells, with repeated pastes. When you want to turn the process off, just click the Esc key, and the ants recede. Note that if you paste with Enter, the ants immediately disappear. How about copying a range of cells? This time:
1. Select the range and release the mouse (or keys, if you’re pressing).
2. Click Copy.
3. Click the first of the destination cells only. That is, if for example you want to copy cells H2:H5 to say, J6:J9, click J6 only. Excel is smart enough to know that if you’re copying four cells you’re pasting four, and it merely needs you to tell it where the new destination starts.
4. Execute one of the Paste options described above.
Note that when you paste a copied range Excel preserves the orientation of the cells in question.
That is, if you copy a column of cells, Paste will always paste these in columnar fashion, and a copied row will always paste as a row (yes, you can paste a column into a row orientation and vice versa if you want to, but that’s for a bit later).
And what of moving data? That’s what we really mean by cutting and pasting, and the process is rather easy:
1. Select the cell or cells you want to move.
2. Click the Cut button directly above the Copy button, or its equivalent, Ctrl-X.
The marching ants do their thing, but note that the cell contents don’t disappear, even though you’ve apparently cut them
3. Again, select the first destination cell.
4. Click Paste, or one of its equivalents, including Enter. You’re done. (Note:
moving a cell containing a formula will not change any of its cell references, a point to remember when we discuss relative cell addressing in a later chapter.)
Note that with Cut and Paste the marching ants retreat after one Paste. That’s because, well, what’s the alternative? The data have been cut and moved elsewhere; granting users another Paste means they’d want to move the data again immediately—a not terribly likely prospect.
There’s an alternative way to move (and copy) data in cells, though this one requires a bit of delicacy. Select the range you want to move and rest your mouse anywhere along the range’s perimeter, until you see a pair of double-sided arrows. Then click and drag the range to its new destination, and release the mouse. If you do the same thing while holding the Ctrl key down, you can copy the range.
These techniques are fairly easy to mess up, though; releasing the mouse too soon will let the data down in the wrong place.
Now there’s still another way to copy cell contents, this one also mouse-powered, and it works like this: We’ll start with a number in one cell. Click the cell and slide your mouse atop the lower-right corner of the cell pointer border, where you’ll notice a small square lodged in the corner, like a dimple. When you roll the mouse over that little shape, your indicator should remake itself into a slender black cross, as
shown in Figure 2–28, not to be confused with the black double-arrow variety you generate when you widen columns:
Figure 2–28. The fill handle
When that cross appears, click and hold the mouse button down. Drag as far as you wish, either across a row or down a column, depending on the direction in which you want to copy. Release the mouse when you’ve dragged the desired distance; you’ll see the original number has been copied down or across the range you’ve dragged. You’ll also doubtless take note of the caption that escorts you down/across the range as you drag; it tells you what value will appear in each cell in the copied-to, destination range as you drag. But because, in this case, you’re simply copying the same number to each cell again and again, you may think that the caption tells you something you already know—and you’re right—this time.
We’ve just demonstrated an application of what’s called Auto-fill, a device that can serve you most productively once you learn its capabilities. And that square dimple we dragged is called the fill handle, and you’ll want to handle it with care.
And you’ll notice something else. When you’ve completed dragging, Excel caps the process by appending to the lower-right corner of the new, copied range what’s called an Auto Fill Options button.
Click it and four selections place themselves at your service. We’ll discuss the first two here, because the latter two carry out formatting options, which aren’t our concern here. Take a look at Figure 2–29:
Figure 2–29. Auto-fill options
The default selection, Copy Cells, really characterizes what we’ve just done. But assuming we’ve copied the number 3 as per the screen shot, from the D17 source cell down through D30, look then what happens when we click selection number two, Fill Series, as shown in Figure 2–30:
Figure 2–30. A Fill Series
I’ll bet that one got you to look up and stop texting. What Excel has done here is add an increment of one to each of the cells in the range to which we copied the original value, 3. That’s a rather cool
capability (and it hasn’t debuted in Excel 2010, either—this option goes way back), and we’re just getting started with it.
Now try this: type the numbers 3 and 5 in cells G3 and G4. Then select both cells and release the mouse. Next, Click and drag the fill handle down the G column to G10. You should see this (Figure 2–
31):
Figure 2–31. Getting a handle on the process: A fill series displaying an interval of 2
Here, Excel works with two starting cells, containing the numbers 3 and 5; these alert the worksheet about the interval that will pump up all the numbers in the range. As per the Auto Options button command, we’ve generated what’s called a Fill Series, and we could have dragged the fill handle down thousands of cells had we wished, with each successive cell displaying a value 2 higher than the preceding one. And if you start with 5 and 3 instead of 3 and 5 and drag the handle, the numbers will descend in decrements of two, e.g., 5, 3, 1, -1, -3, etc. Nor is Excel intimated by exotic intervals: if you enter starting numbers of say 1.36 and 2.43, Auto-fill is perfectly happy to roll out 3.5, 4.57, 5.64, and the like. Just keep this caution in mind: in order to carry out an Auto-fill properly and avoid a common mistake, don’t, for example, type 3 and 5 and return to the 3 and begin dragging. Rather, you must select 3 and 5, release the mouse, and then return to that selection and drag the fill handle. That is, you must see this, shown in Figure 2–32, before you start the fill process:
Figure 2–32. Learning to let go: release the mouse before you drag here.