Work with a Range of Cells in Excel
Sometimes, you will find it necessary to insert a new row, column, or range of cells into your workbooks. Perhaps you have added a new product, customer, or employee to a list. You will also need to be able to delete rows, columns, and ranges. All of these things are quite simple in Excel.
How To Insert a Range of Cells
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Select the range where you want to insert the cells.
To select a range, point to the first cell you want to select and drag to the last cell.
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From the Insert menu, choose Cells (or choose Insert from the shortcut menu for the selected range).
Excel will display a dialog box asking how you want to shift the remaining cells.
- Specify whether you want to shift cells or insert an entire row or column.
- Click OK.
How To Delete a Range of Cells
- Select the range you want to delete.
- From the Edi menu, choose Delete (or choose Delete from the shortcut menu).
- Specify where to shift the cells.
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Click OK.
Note: If you select an entire row or column, you will not need to specify where to shift cells.
How To Use the Mouse to Enter Range References
You can use the mouse to enter a range reference in a formula or function
- Enter the equal sign, function name, and opening parenthesis for the function
- Drag over the range for which you want to enter a reference
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Type the closing parenthesis and enter the function.
Or, you can enter more arguments by typing a comma (,) and continuing.
How To Select Non-Contiguous Ranges
A non-contiguous range is a range in which not all the cells are adjacent. For example, you might want to apply the same formatting to cells A1, B4, and the range C6:D7. You can do it in one step by selecting the non-contiguous range containing all of those cells.
- Select the first cell or range.
- While holding down the Ctrl key, select any other cells or ranges you want to add to the selection.
- You can then format the selected range as you would any other selection.