Selecting and Editing Worksheet Cells

Enter data in the currently selected cell with the worksheet Formula bar.

Selecting Cells

To select cells:

Select a single cell: Click on the cell. The cell contents, for spreadsheet rows and database header rows, are displayed in the worksheet Formula bar.

Select a range of cells: Click-drag across a range of cells to select them, or click in one corner and Shift-click in the opposite corner.

Select an entire column or row: Click on the header cell. Click-drag across the header cells to select multiple rows or columns.

Select non-contiguous cells, rows, or columns: Press and hold the Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Macintosh) key while clicking on each cell, row, or column to select.

Select the entire worksheet: Click at the top left worksheet cell.

Editing Cells

Spreadsheet cells can be edited. To edit a cell:

1.	Select the cell.

The cell contents are displayed in the worksheet Formula bar.

2.	Type directly in the Formula bar to enter text, numbers, or a formula.

3.	To accept the edits and change the cell contents, click on the green check mark button. To cancel the edits, click on the red “X.”

4.

If necessary, adjust the width of the cell columns or cell rows by dragging the divider bar between the cell header columns or cell header rows. Alternatively, select the Column Width command from the Worksheet menu (see Column Width). Adjust the row height with the Row Height command from the Worksheet menu (see Row Height). Multiple rows or columns can be adjusted at one time.

Text that is longer than the width of a cell “floats” over empty adjacent cells. Numbers that exceed the cell width are displayed with # characters. Alternatively, text can be set to wrap (see Formatting Worksheet Cells).

Cutting, Copying, and Pasting Cell Contents

The standard shortcut keys for Cut (Ctrl+X for Windows, Command+X for Macintosh), Copy (Ctrl+C for Windows, Command+C for Macintosh), and Paste (Ctrl+V for Windows, Command+V for Macintosh) can be used for worksheet editing.

The same value or formula can be copied to a range of cells.

To copy cell contents to a range of cells:

1.	Select the cell with the information to repeat and copy the cell by pressing Command+C (Macintosh) or Ctrl+C (Windows).

2.	Select the destination cells for the information and paste by pressing Command+V (Macintosh) or Ctrl+V (Windows). The formula or value is repeated in each of the selected cells.

Adding Rows and Columns

Rows and columns can be inserted with the Insert command on the worksheet menu (see Worksheet Commands). In addition, placing the cursor at the bottom right corner of the worksheet activates a special cursor which allows rows and/or columns to be added by dragging.