Entering Data in Excel ( PDF Version )

To enter data in a cell, simply select the cell (click on it) and write something. It can be a number, a text, a date... whatever you want to see in that cell. If you want to overwrite all the data in a cell, you can do exactly the same, i.e. click the cell and type the new data. If you only want to change part of the data in a cell you need to be in Edit mode. to do that, you can double-click the cell, it will put it in Edit mode. You could also press F2 after selecting the cell, it will do the same. As you are typing data in a cell, the data appears in both the active cell and the formula bar. The data appears in both the cell and the formula bar, but it is actually the same data. So, making changes in either location will update the cell's data.

The data you enter in a cell is not accepted until you do one of the following:

People mostly use the Enter key when entering data vertically, as the next active cell will be the cell below. It is useful when typing vertical lists of values. If you need to enter data horizontally, then you can use the Tab to validate your input; it will save you time.

Using Copy/Cut and Paste

When you have to enter the same information in different cells, you will save time by copying and pasting instead of retyping data into your spreadsheets. With Excel, you often need to copy some cells from one part of the spreadsheet to another (copy and paste). This is very useful, especially when you have cells that need to be repeated many times. Sometimes you may also want to move cells from one part of the spreadsheet to the other (cut and paste). The different between "copy and paste" and "cut and paste" is that the first one does not change the original cells, but the second one does.

Copy and Paste

First let's look at copy and paste of a single cell. First you have to select the cell you want to copy. Then you press Ctrl-C (press the keys "Ctrl" and "C" simultaneously). This copies the cell (the cell borders will change into "walking ants"). Then you select the cell where you want to paste the cell. Once you have selected the cell, press Ctrl-V (press the keys "Ctrl" and "V" simultaneously). You have done it.

If you want to copy and paste multiple cells, you proceed the same way, but with a group of cells. First you have to select the cells, in order to tell Excel what you want to copy. To do this you can use the keyboard "arrow keys" to go to the first cell to copy and then keep the key down and move the cursor (again with the "arrow keys") in order to highlight all the cells you want to copy. Alternatively, you could also select the cells by highlighting them with the mouse. To do that, you simply select the first cell you want to copy and "drag" the mouse over the other cells to be copied. This means that you click on the first cell, keep the mouse button down and move the mouse cursor to the last cell to copy, then release the mouse button. Now you can press Ctrl-C to copy the cells (the cell borders will change into "walking ants").

Then you need to select the cell where you want to paste the copied cells. You can "activate" the cell where you want to copy the cells by using the keyboard "arrow keys" or you can directly point to this cell with the mouse cursor. then you can paste the cells by pressing Ctrl-V (press the keys "Ctrl" and "V" simultaneously).

Cut and Paste

To cut and paste cells in your spreadsheet, you follow the same steps as for copy and paste, but instead of using Ctrl-C, you use Ctrl-X (press the keys "Ctrl" and "X" simultaneously). Note that the cells are not yet "cut", they remain at the same place on the spreadsheet until you paste them (it is a security: if you do not paste them anywhere, they will not get cut). To paste the cells, you use the same "Paste" command (Ctrl-V). The only difference with copy and paste is that, as soon as you paste the cells to their new locations, the original cells (the ones you did "cut") will become empty.