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56 Part I: Creating Spreadsheets
Selecting the Ranges to Edit

Selecting occupied cells in the worksheet for editing is very much the same process as
selecting blank cells for preformatting or data entry with one important exception.
Because the cells already contain data, in addition to dragging through the ranges and
clicking the first and last cell while holding down the Shift key, you can use a technique
known as AutoSelect to quickly select an entire block of occupied cells in a couple of
mouse clicks.
Moreover, you can use Excel’s Go To and range name features to combine locating a
cell range that needs editing and selecting its cells all at the same time!

Try It

Exercise 4-5: Selecting the Range of Cells for Editing
Open the Exercise4-5.xls workbook file in the Chapter 4 folder inside your My Practice
Spreadsheets folder or on the Excel Workbook CD-ROM. This file contains a copy of
the 2006 Production Schedule worksheet that you can use to practice selecting cell
ranges for editing beginning with the AutoSelect feature:

1. Position the mouse pointer on the bottom edge of the cell cursor in cell A2, hold
down the Shift key, and then when the Arrowhead mouse pointer appears,
double-click the bottom edge.

AutoSelect extends the selection down to row 7, the last occupied row in the
data table.
2. Continue to hold down the Shift key as you double-click anywhere on the right
edge of the extended cell cursor.

AutoSelect extends the cell selection to column J, the last occupied column in
the data table, effectively selecting all of its cells in the range A2:J7.
3. Click cell A15 in the worksheet to position the cell cursor in this cell while at the
same time deselecting the cell range A2:J7.
Now you will practice selecting the cells in the data table using Excel’s Go To
feature, which is normally used to position the cell cursor in a new cell in the
worksheet.
4. Press F5 or Ctrl+G to open the Go To dialog box and then type A2 (it’s all right to
enter the reference as a2) and press Enter.

The Go To dialog box disappears and the cell cursor jumps to cell A2, making it
current.
5. Press F5 or Ctrl+G to open the Go To dialog box again and then type J7 (or j7).
This time, however, hold down the Shift key as you press Enter.

Excel jumps the cell pointer to cell J7 and, because you held down the Shift key,
the program also selected all the cells in between (if you didn’t hold down Shift
key, the program just moves the cursor from A2 to J7).
6. Position the cell cursor in cell A1 and use AutoSelect on your own to select the
cell range A1:J7.
Note that this time it takes an extra double-click on the bottom edge of the cell
cursor to extend the cell selection down to row 7. Next, you’re going to name
this cell selection.