JUMP TO NEXT CORNER OF SELECTION

Problem: I have to constantly zoom in and out on my worksheet. The zoom slider is a hassle.

Strategy: Hold down the Ctrl key while rolling the mouse wheel. Roll away from you to zoom in. Roll towards you to zoom out.

Additional Details: Most people use the scroll wheel to scroll up and down. Did you know that you can also use the mouse to scroll side to side? Click and hold the mouse wheel then move the mouse left or right to scroll sideways. This only works when you have a horizontal scrollbar available.

COPY A FORMULA TO ALL DATA ROWS

Problem: I have a worksheet with thousands of rows of data. I often enter a formula in a new column and need to copy it down to all of the rows. I try to do this by dragging the fill handle. But as I try to drag, Excel starts accelerating faster and faster. Before I know it, I’ve overshot the last row by thousands of rows. I

start dragging back up. Again, Excel starts accelerating. Soon, the cell pointer is moving somewhere close 1 to the speed of sound, and I find that I’ve overshoot the last row in the other direction. I end up going down

and up, down and up. I call this frustrating process the “fill handle dance.” Is there a way to stop the mad- ness?

Figure 72 Copy this formula all the way down.

Strategy: You can very quickly copy a formula down to all the rows by double-clicking the fill handle. Excel will copy the formula down until it encounters a blank row in the adjacent data. The fill handle is the square dot in the lower-right corner of the cell pointer box. When you hover your mouse over the fill handle, the cell pointer changes to a plus.

Gotcha: In Excel 2007 and earlier, a single blank cell in the adjacent column would cause the copy action to stop prematurely. If the adjacent column is particularly sparse, you could hide that column and then Excel would look at the next visible column to the left. This algorithm was improved in Excel 2010 and will usually get you to the bottom of the data.

Alternate Strategy: From E2, press Left Arrow to go to D2. Ctrl+Down Arrow to get to the bottom, Press

Right Arrow to go back to column E. Ctrl+Shift+Up Arrow selects from the last row to E2. Ctrl+D will fill down and the formula in E2 will get copied. Practice for a week, and you can do all the keystrokes in less than a second. You will be on the team if Excel ever becomes an Olympic sport.

COPY THE CHARACTERS FROM A CELL INSTEAD­ OF COPYING AN ENTIRE CELL

Problem: I need to copy from Excel to Outlook. Microsoft applies weird formatting to the values when I paste to Outlook. Instead of getting just the text, it almost seems like Outlook is wrapping the cell value in a table. I end up pasting Excel data to Notepad, then copying from Notepad.

Strategy: If you have a single cell to copy and want to grab just the characters from the cell, you follow these steps:

1. Select the cell. Put the cell in Edit mode by pressing F2. 2. Select all the characters in the cell by pressing Ctrl+A.

3. Press Ctrl+C to copy.

4. Paste to another application. Excel will not try to place the text in a table.

An advantage of this method is that characters copied to the Clipboard will remain on the Clipboard longer than cells copied to the Clipboard. If you copy a cell, the Clipboard is cleared when you press Esc or save the file. If you copy characters to the Clipboard, they will stay on the Clipboard after these events.

Alternate Strategy: If you have several cells to copy, you can just copy and paste the cells. After you paste to Outlook, a Paste Options icon will appear. You can open the icon and choose Keep Text Only to convert the table to text.

After converting the pasted cells to text, you will have plain text that appears as if you simply typed the values

A FASTER WAY TO PASTE VALUES

Problem: I have a range of formulas that I need to convert to values.

Strategy: Use the Paste Values icon on the right-click menu. You will see that the right-click menu in- cludes icons for Paste, Paste Values, Paste Formulas, Transpose, Paste Formats, and Create Links.

Figure 73 The right-click menu offers 6 options.

When you hover over one of those icons, the rest of the context menu disappears so that you can see the effect of the paste in Live Preview. If you hover over Paste Special in the right-click menu, the menu will disappear and you have access to all 15 icons.

If you prefer to use the mouse, try this amazing trick: hold down the shift key while you drag the border of a selection. When you release the mouse, choose Copy Here as Values Only from the menu that appears.

If you regularly use the Paste icon in the Home tab, the dropdown at the bottom of the tab now leads to a menu with the 15 icons. There are still some options in Paste Special that are not available in the icons. You can access those commands by using the Paste Special menu item at the bottom of this figure.

Many times each day, I convert formulas to values by using Ctrl+C,

Alt+E+S+V, Enter.

Sometimes, I need to copy values and formats to a new place. In the new place, I have to do Alt+E+S+V, Enter, Alt+E+S+T+Enter.

As mentioned previously, you can use Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl, V to change formulas to value. To paste values and formats, you now use the new Ctrl+V, Ctrl, E to paste values and number formatting.

PeopleinmyseminarstellmetouseAlt,H,V,VortouseCtrl+Alt+V,

V.

There might be an even faster way. This key is the right-click key.

Use Ctrl+C, Right-Click Key, V to paste as values. If you don’t have the Right-Click key, use Shift+F10. If you need to paste values and formats, the Right-Click, E keys will do it.

Figure 74 The paste dropdown offers the icons.

QUICKLY TURN A RANGE ON ITS SIDE

Problem; I have a column that contains 20 department names going down a column. I need to build a worksheet with those names going across row 1.

Strategy: Copy the data. Select a new blank cell. Do a Paste

Transpose. Here’s how:

1. Highlight the department names in column A.

2. Ctrl+C to copy the cells to the Clipboard.

3. Move the cell pointer to a blank area of the worksheet.

Your paste region can not start in the same cell as your copy region.

4. Open the Paste dropdown. Click the Transpose icon.

Figure 76 Turn this data sideways.