excel tutorialExcel Ranges
A range in Excel is a collection of two or more cells. This chapter gives an overview of some very important range basics, such as selecting cells, rows and columns, selecting a range of individual cells, filling a range, moving a range, copy/pasting a range and inserting a row or a column.
Cell, Row, Column
Let's start by selecting a cell, row and column.
1. To select cell C3, click on the box at the intersection of column C and row 3.
2. To select column C, click on the column C header.
3. To select row 3, click on the row 3 header.
Range Examples
A range is a collection of two or more cells.
1. To select the range with address B2:C4, click on cell B2 and drag it to cell C4.
2. To select a range of individual cells, for example cell B2, C4 and D3,
... hold down CTRL and click on each cell that you want to include in the range.
Fill a Range
There are many ways to fill a range. Here are some important techniques.
To fill a selected range with the same values, execute the following steps.
1. Select the range.
2. For example, press 2. Excel places this value in the first selected cell.
3. Click on CTRL + ENTER.
Result:
We can also fill a range by clicking on the lower right corner of a cell and dragging it down to fill a vertical range or across to fill a horizontal range. Execute the following steps.
4. Select cell B2 and enter the value 2.
5. Click on the lower right corner of cell B2 and drag it down to cell B8.
Result:
This dragging technique is very important and you will use it very often in Excel. Here is another example.
6. Enter the value 2 into cell B2 and the value 4 into cell B3. Select cell B2 and cell B3.
7. Click on the lower right corner of this range and drag it down.
Excel automatically fills the range based on the pattern of the first two values. That's pretty cool huh!?
Move a Range
To move a range, execute the following steps.
1. Select a range and click on the border of the range.
2. Drag the range to its new location.
Copy/Paste a Range
To copy a range, execute the following steps.
1. Select the range, right click and then click on Copy.
2. Select the cell where you want the first cell of the range to appear, right click, and click on Paste under the 'Paste Options:' group.
Note: the other Paste Options are not important at this stage, but you can have a go with it if you want.
Insert Row, Column
To insert a row between the values 20 and 40 below, execute the following steps.
1. Right click on the row 3 header.
2. Click on Insert.
Result:
The rows below the new row are shifted down. In a similar way, you can insert a column.
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