Excel® 2010 Bible

Chapter 4. Working with Cells and Ranges

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding Excel cells and ranges

Selecting cells and ranges

Copying or moving ranges

Using names to work with ranges

Adding comments to cells

Most of the work you do in Excel involves cells and ranges. Understanding how best to manipulate cells and ranges will save you time and effort. This chapter discusses a variety of techniques that you can use to help increase your efficiency.

4.1. Understanding Cells and Ranges

A cell is a single element in a worksheet that can hold a value, some text, or a formula. A cell is identified by its address, which consists of its column letter and row number. For example, cell D12 is the cell in the fourth column and the twelfth row.

A group of cells is called a range. You designate a range address by specifying its upper-left cell address and its lower-right cell address, separated by a colon.

Here are some examples of range addresses:

C24	A range that consists of a single cell.
A1:B1	Two cells that occupy one row and two columns.
A1:A100	100 cells in column A.
A1:D4	16 cells (four rows by four columns).
C1:C1048576	An entire column of cells; this range also can be expressed as C:C.
A6:XFD6	An entire row of cells; this range also can be expressed as 6:6.
A1:XFD1048576	All cells in a worksheet. This range also can be expressed as either A:XFD or 1:1048576.

4.1.1. Selecting ranges

To perform an operation on a range of cells in a worksheet, you must first select the range. For example, if you want to ...