One enters information into an Excel worksheet by modifying the cells within that sheet. The process is the same regardless of whether you are entering information into empty cells or cells that already contain data. If you wish to enter information into an empty cell, simply activate the cell and then begin typing. When you do so, the formula bar becomes activated and two icons appeared to the left of the formula bar.
When you finish typing, you can do one of two things: you can either cancel, to abandon the changes you’ve made to the cell; or you can enter, to confirm the changes you’ve made. If you wish to cancel, either click on the cancel button on the left of the formula bar or press the escape key on your keyboard. If you wish to confirm your changes, you can either click on the Enter button to the left of the formula bar or press the Enter key on your keyboard.
The action of pressing the Enter key does two things: it confirms your data entry and, also, moves you down one cell. This is usually pretty convenient. However Excel allows you to decide what happens when you press the Enter key. To specify this, click on the Office button and choose Excel options. On the left of the dialog box, click on the advanced button. This will display “Editing Options”. The first Editing Option reads “After pressing enter move selection” and allows you to choose the direction in which you move whenever you press the Enter key.
You can either choose “down”, “right”, “up” or “left” or you also have the option of completely deactivating any movement. This means that, whenever you enter data and press the Enter key, the information is entered into the cell but the cell remains active: you won’t move down.
If you want to enter data into several cells, Excel allows you to highlight a range of cells and then to navigate between the highlighted cells, entering information as you move. For example, if you are filling out an invoice, you can select a matrix of cells under the “quantity”, “description” and “unit price” columns. After you’ve entered the quantity, you can then press the Tab key on the keyboard to move to the “description” column. You then press Tab again to move the “price” column, and so on.
When you reach the last column of the highlighted matrix of cells, pressing Tab moves us to the second highlighted row. Whey you reach the bottom right of the selection, if you continue to press Tab, you move back to the top left once more. Excel even allows you to move backward by pressing Shift and Tab.
You can also move down first and then to the right (as an alternative to moving right and then down). To do so, press the Enter key instead of the Tab key. Naturally, pressing Shift and Enter allows you to move in reverse: up and then to the left.
There are two ways of inputting information into a cell that already contains information. Firstly, you can simply type a new value. Activate the cell; type the value and then press the Enter key. Secondly, you can edit the value, either by double-clicking on the cell and making your changes directly within the cell; or by activating the cell and making your changes in the formula bar.
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Tags: Excel, Software, spreadsheet