Editing Data

Selecting Data

In order to edit data in a cell, you need to select it. There are two ways to select data in Excel:

• To select a cell, click it. You can then edit the cell's contents in the Formula bar, as explained in the next section on "Editing Data."
• To select the contents within a cell, double-click the cell. You can then drag across text or other data to select it, as you would in a word processing program. Use this technique to edit the contents of a cell directly in that cell.

Sometimes you want to work with a group of cells. For example, you may want to move several cells. A group of cells within a rectangular area are called a range. To select more than one cell at one time, use one of the following techniques:

• Drag from one corner to the diagonally opposite corner to select a rectangular range of cells. You can also drag down a column or across a row to select a line of cells.
• Click the first cell you want to select, press Shift, and select the last cell you want to select.
• Click one cell to select it, press Ctrl (PC) or Command () (Mac), and select another cell. You can continue to select cells using this method, which is the only way to select several cells that are not in a range (not contiguous).

Editing Data

There are two ways to edit the contents of a cell in Excel. Use whichever method you like:

• Select a cell (by clicking it) and edit the contents in the Formula bar. To edit in the Formula bar, click the contents of the Formula bar. Select text as you would in a word processing program, by dragging across it.
• Double-click a cell and edit the contents directly in the cell.

In either case, you edit data as you would in any other program. For example, you can also click anywhere to place the cursor and press the Backspace key (sometimes shown with a left-pointing arrow) to delete text to the left of the cursor.