Page 68 - Excel Timesaving Techniques for Dummies

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10 Making the Most
Efficient Cell

Technique Selections

ecause cell selection is one of the most basic and regularly per-
Save Time By formed worksheet task, knowing how to efficiently select ranges of
Bcells in the spreadsheet can go a long way toward making you a
Selecting ranges with
AutoSelect truly effective worker. Cell selection, while rudimentary, is still very
important to taking a lot of the drudgery out of spreadsheet work. After
Selecting ranges with all, selecting cells is the thing you have to do before you can assign new
Go To formatting and alignment; move, copy, or reorient the data; and print spe-
Selecting entire columns, cific parts of the spreadsheet.
rows, or sheets
Before going over some of the fancier and more grandiose procedures
for selecting cells in a worksheet, you might want to review the two
basic procedures for using a mouse to select single cell ranges in the
worksheet:

Click the first cell in the range and then drag the thick, white-cross
pointer to the last cell.
Click the first cell in the range, and then hold down the Shift key as
you click the last cell you want to select (a procedure known as
Shift+clicking).

To select multiple, nonadjacent cell selections at a time (also known as a
noncontiguous cell selection), you follow these steps:
1. Select the first cell range with your mouse as usual.
2. Hold down the Ctrl key as you use your mouse to select the second
range.
When you hold down the Ctrl key as you start to select the second
range, Excel does not deselect the first range — as it normally
would — so this first range continues to be highlighted (shaded)
in the worksheet, as shown in Figure 10-1.
3. Repeat Step 2 as needed to select all additional ranges that need to
be included in the noncontiguous cell selection and then release
both the Ctrl key and the mouse button at the same time.