Microsoft Excel is a powerful tool that businesses leverage every day to store, track, and report on data, but it can be tedious to work in the document without knowing all of its little tricks. Today, we want to share with you one that could save you valuable clicks and time spent copying and pasting values. You’ll learn how to enter the same data into multiple cells at once.
This trick works in both the desktop application and the online app, so regardless of how you use Microsoft Excel, you should be able to get some value out of this tip.
Enter the Same Data Into Multiple Cells At Once
Here are the steps involved with entering data into the same cells all at once:
- First, highlight the cells where you want the same text to show up.
- Second, type the text you want into the cell.
- Finally, once you’re done, press Ctrl + Enter.
Notice how we didn’t say “Hit Enter” there. If you were to simply press Enter, it would only work in the initial cell selected.
Once you’ve completed these steps, you’ll see that the text will have automatically been entered into all of your highlighted cells. This is a great trick to leverage when you need to quickly enter the same text, but also may need to edit some of it later on.
But What About Formulas?
Another helpful Excel tip is how you can copy the cell’s contents from an above cell into your currently selected cell. To do this, you could use the Ctrl + Shift + “ (quote) keyboard shortcut to copy a cell’s content from the one directly above it.
This is especially helpful for if you have a formula you want to use for an entire column. Copying the exact formula doesn’t work in this case because formulas rely on specific cell, row, and column values.
To fill a range of cells in a column with the contents of the topmost cell (including the formulas it uses, adjusted for the current cell), you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + D while selecting the range of cells. Pretty cool!
Want to learn more neat ways to leverage technology to your advantage? North Central Technologies can help. Learn more by calling us at 978-798-6805 today.
