Excel Ranges
Ranges
Because it lets you work with cell selections, range is a crucial feature of Excel.
There are four distinct selection processes:
- Choosing a cell
- Choosing several cells
- Choosing a column
- Selecting a row
Before having a look at the different operations for selection, we will introduce the Name Box.
The Name Box
You can see the reference of the cell or range you have selected in the Name Box. Typing the values of cells or ranges can also be used to select them.
The Name Box will be covered in more detail later in this chapter.
Selecting a Cell
Selecting a cell can be done by using the keyboard arrows or by clicking on it with the left mouse button.
The mouse is the most convenient tool for choosing cells.
To pick cell A1, click on it:
Selecting Multiple Cells
You can select multiple cells by left-clicking on the cells while holding down the CTRL or Command key. When you’re done choosing, you can release Command or CTRL.
Lets try an example: Select the cells A1, A7, C1, C7 and B4.
Did it look like the picture below?
Selecting a Column
Selecting a column requires a left-click. This will pick every cell in the sheet that is associated with the column.
Click the letter A in the column bar to pick column A:
Selecting a Row
You can select a row by left-clicking on it. This will pick every cell in the sheet that is associated with that row.
To select row 1, click on its number in the row bar:
Selecting the Entire Sheet
Clicking the triangle in the spreadsheet’s upper-left corner will select the entire document:
Now, the whole spreadsheet is selected:
Note: You can also select the entire spreadsheet by pressing Ctrl+A for Windows, or Cmd+A for MacOS.
Selection of Ranges
Excel’s selection of cell ranges is a fundamental idea with a wide range of applications. Don’t give it too much thought as to how it fits with values. This is something you will discover in a later chapter. Let us now concentrate on range selection.
To choose a range of cells, there are two methods.
- Name Box
- Drag to mark a range.
Drag and mark is the simplest method. Let us begin with something basic.
How to drag and mark a range in detail:
- Pick a cell.
- Make a left click while holding down the mouse button.
- Move the pointer of your mouse over the desired selection range. This will cause the marked range to become gray.
- After marking the range, release the mouse button.
Now let us examine an example of marking the range A1:E10.
Note: This example is followed by information on why the range is named A1:E10.
Select cell A1:
Using the left mouse button, press and hold A1. Then, use the mouse cursor to mark the selection range (the gray area indicates the covered range). Once you have marked the range A1:E10:
You’ve chosen the range A1:E10 with success. Excellent work!
Alternatively, you can also put the range values in the Name Box to choose a range. To set the range, input the cell reference for the upper left corner first, followed by the lower right corner. Those two are the coordinates used to create the range. For this reason, the cell range includes a reference pair of cells as well as a gap in between.
Reference to upper left corner: Reference to lower right corner
The range represented in the image is A1:E10:
For now, the easiest and most visual method is to use the drag and mark method.
You will learn about filling and how it relates to the ranges we have just learned about in the upcoming chapter.
