Editing

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'Editing' topic. Click the article's title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

Changing Undo Levels
Excel maintains a record of most of the commands you execute so that you can later "undo" those commands, if desired. It is helpful to understand the way that Excel maintains this list of commands and how it can be changed.

Choosing what Happens when You Press Enter
Excel lets you specify how it should behave when you press Enter. If you change this behavior, Excel assumes you want it changed for all workbooks on which you might be working. Here's how to adjust it so that the behavior can vary based on which workbook you are using.

Copying Cell Contents without Formatting
Want to copy the contents of one cell to another without copying the formatting? It's easy to do by using the controls on the Home tab of the Ribbon.

Differences between Clearing and Deleting
When you want to remove information from a worksheet, you can either clear cells or delete cells. This tip examines the difference between the two, focusing on the different ways you can both delete and clear information.

Displaying Your Worksheet Full-Screen
Do you want your worksheet to take up as much room on the screen as possible? You can display it in "full-screen mode" by using the View tab of the Ribbon as described in this tip.

Editing by Moving and Copying
At the very heart of editing is the ability to move and copy cells in a worksheet. Understanding the differences between these operations, as well as how to perform them, is important for any Excel user.

Forcing Editing within Cells
Excel won't allow you to force editing only within a cell, but there is a way to work around this limitation. Make a couple of changes and you can have cell editing exclusively.

Getting Rid of Insert Options
When you insert rows, columns, or cells in a worksheet, does the resulting Insert Options icon bother you? Here's how to get rid of it.

Getting Rid of the Paste Option Buttons
Paste some information into a worksheet and Excel helpfully displays some options related t the paste operation. If you don't want to see those options, here's how to turn the feature off.

Quickly Transposing Cells
If you want to turn a range of cells by 90 degrees within a worksheet, you need to understand how Excel can handle the transposition for you. Here's the absolute quickest way.

Removing Non-Printing Characters
If you import data into a worksheet that was originally created in another program, it may contain some non-printing characters that you need to eliminate. This tip provides some techniques (and a handy macro) that you can use to get rid of the offending characters.

Specifying Enter Key Behavior
When you are entering data in a worksheet and you press Enter, it is the signal to Excel that you are done with the current cell. What happens next depends on a setting you make that indicates which way you want Excel to move the selection.

Specifying How Excel Interprets Percentages
When you enter a number into a cell that is formatted for percentages, Excel tries to figure out if there needs to be any adjustment to what you entered. This tip describes the problem and indicates how you can control the "figuring" that Excel does.

Specifying where Editing is Done
Where do you want to do the editing in your worksheet cells? Excel allows you to specify if editing should be allowed only in the Formula bar or also in cells.

Using AutoComplete
Entering data in a worksheet can be time consuming. One of the tools that Excel provides to make entry easier is AutoComplete, described in this tip.

Viewing Multiple Places in the Same Worksheet
Do you want to look at different places in the same worksheet at the same time? It's easy to do if you simply open new windows in Excel.

Viewing Multiple Worksheets at the Same Time
If you need to work on two worksheets in the same workbook at the same time, Excel makes this rather easy to do. All you need to do is display two windows and arrange them to both be visible.

What Happens after You Press Enter
What happens when you press Enter in a cell depends on how you have Excel configured. Here's the way you can control the action Excel takes.

 

More Information

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