Page 49 - Excel Timesaving Techniques for Dummies

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Technique 6: Utilizing Excel’s Editing Settings
the edit by pressing the Enter key or by clicking the
Enter button on the Formula bar (the button with
the green check mark). To bail on the edit and
restore the original contents, press Esc.

Pressing F2 to direct edit always positions
the Insertion point at the very end of the cell
entry. When you double-click the cell, Excel
places the Insertion point as close as possible
to the position of the white cross in that cell.
The question inevitably arises as to when it’s more
efficient to edit a cell entry directly versus editing it
on the Formula bar. For me, this decision depends
upon the length of the cell entry and its position in
the spreadsheet. When dealing with really long and
• Figure 6-3: The worksheet after moving the selected data
complex formulas in a cell (like the one shown in
in the table.
Figure 6-4), editing them directly in the cell can end
up obscuring the cells in the surrounding region to
For example, you can’t use drag-and-drop to move or
the right and below the cell, which is okay unless
copy a range of cells from one worksheet to another
you need to refer to these cells in your edit. In such
in the same workbook unless you’ve taken the time
a case, you would find it much more beneficial to
to set up separate windows for the sheets before-
edit the cell’s formula on the Formula bar. This leaves
hand. And unless you have other reasons for setting
most of the worksheet unconcealed except at the
up the windows, using drag-and-drop to make the
very top where the multiple lines for the Formula
move or copy just wastes valuable time.
bar obscure the column header and the first rows
of the sheet, as shown in Figure 6-5.
In such a case, using the standard cut-and-paste
method to make the move or copy is much more
efficient. After cutting or copying the cell selection
to the Clipboard (Ctrl+X or Ctrl+C, respectively),
click the new sheet and select the first cell in the
range in which you want the data moved or copied,
and then press Enter to complete the procedure.
(You can also press Ctrl+V to do this.)
Doing Direct Cell Editing

Direct cell editing offers you an alternative to editing
the data or formula you’ve entered into a cell on the
Formula bar above the sheet’s work area. To directly
edit the contents of a cell, you double-click the cell —
or press F2 — to place the Insertion point in its con- • Figure 6-4: Editing a really long formula like this one in
tents, and then you edit its characters as you would its cell obscures any data in cells in the region
on the Formula bar (or in a Word document). When to its right.
you finish modifying the cell’s contents, you complete