Skip to content
Free Excel Tutorials
  • Home
  • Excel For Beginners
  • Excel Intermediate
  • Advanced Excel For Experts

Data Analysis

  • What-If Analysis: Scenarios and Goal Seek in Excel
  • How To Create Pareto Chart in Excel
  • Get column name from index in Excel Table
  • How to create dynamic reference table name in Excel
  • Conditional Formatting Color Scales Examples in Excel

References

  • Two-way lookup with VLOOKUP in Excel
  • Offset in Excel
  • Get nth match with INDEX / MATCH in Excel
  • How to get first column number in range in Excel
  • Last row number in range

Data Validations

  • Excel Data validation only dates between
  • Excel Data validation must not contain
  • Excel Data validation number multiple 100
  • Excel Data validation require unique number
  • Excel Data validation whole percentage only

Excel Autofill Cell Ranges, Copy, Paste

by

Understanding Cell Ranges, Auto fills, Copy/Paste, Insert Row, Column in Excel

Auto fill options in excel is to cell based on another or fill column with same value without dragging

CELL Ranges

People find it difficult to understand Cell Ranges in Excel. To effectively work with formulas it is apparent to have a good knowledge of selections (cell ranges) in Excel.

A range in Excel is a collection of two or more cells.

Excel Office will take you through an overview of some very important range operations.

N/B: Microsoft refers excel as a workbook.

A workbook comprises of one or more worksheets and a worksheet is made up  rows and columns.  The intersection of a row and a column is called a cell, the cell holds the value.

Important! Excel does not recognise entered values but identifies them through their cell names which is indicated at the name box when a cell is selected.

A name box displays the name of the selected cell. e.g B4 as illustrated below:

Cell, Row, Column

Let’s start by selecting a cell, row and column.

1. To select cell C3, click on the box at the intersection of column C and row 3.

 

2. To select column C, click on the column C header.

3. To select row 3, click on the row 3 header.

Range Examples

A range is a collection of two or more cells.

1. To select the range B2:C4, click on cell B2 and drag it to cell C4.

2. To select a range of individual cells, hold down CTRL and click on each cell that you want to include in the range.

Fill a Range or Fill data automatically in worksheet cells

To fill a range, execute the following steps.

1a. Enter the value 2 into cell B2.

1b. Select cell B2, click on the lower right corner of cell B2 and drag it down to cell B8.

Result:

This dragging technique is very important and you will use it very often in Excel. Here’s another example.

2a. Enter the value 2 into cell B2 and the value 4 into cell B3.

2b. Select cell B2 and cell B3, click on the lower right corner of this range and drag it down.

Excel automatically fills the range based on the pattern of the first two values. That’s pretty cool huh!? Here’s another example.

3a. Enter the date 6/13/2016 into cell B2 and the date 6/16/2016 into cell B3.

3b. Select cell B2 and cell B3, click on the lower right corner of this range and drag it down.

Note: visit our page about AutoFill for many more examples.

Copy/Paste a Range

To copy and paste a range, execute the following steps.

1. Select the range, right click, and then click Copy (or press CTRL + c).

2. Select the cell where you want the first cell of the range to appear, right click, and then click Paste under ‘Paste Options:’ (or press CTRL + v).

Select the cell or range of cells. Select Copy or press Ctrl + C. Select Paste or press Ctrl + V.

Move a Range

To move a range, execute the following steps.

1. Select a range and click on the border of the range.

2. Drag the range to its new location.

Insert Row, Column

https://youtu.be/dWHPQ6bOvh8

See more illustrations below:

To insert a row between the values 20 and 40 below, execute the following steps.

1. Select row 3.

2. Right click, and then click Insert.

Result:

The rows below the new row are shifted down.

N/B: In a similar way, you can insert a column and also, delete cells, rows and columns.

Post navigation

Previous Post:

TRUE function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation

Next Post:

Excel Pie Chart

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Learn Basic Excel

Ribbon
Workbook
Worksheets
Format Cells
Find & Select
Sort & Filter
Templates
Print
Share
Protect
Keyboard Shortcuts

Categories

  • Charts
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Validation
  • Excel Functions
    • Cube Functions
    • Database Functions
    • Date and Time Functions
    • Engineering Functions
    • Financial Functions
    • Information Functions
    • Logical Functions
    • Lookup and Reference Functions
    • Math and Trig Functions
    • Statistical Functions
    • Text Functions
    • Web Functions
  • Excel VBA
  • Excel Video Tutorials
  • Formatting
  • Grouping
  • Others

Logical Functions

  • Nested IF function example in Excel
  • IF, AND, OR and NOT Functions Examples in Excel
  • How to use IFS function in Excel
  • Complete List of Excel Logical Functions, References and Examples
  • How to use Excel NOT Function

Date Time

  • Get days between dates ignoring years in Excel
  • Get day from date in Excel
  • Get work hours between dates and times in Excel
  • How to calculate nth day of year in Excel
  • Display Date is same month in Excel

Grouping

  • How to randomly assign people to groups in Excel
  • Group times into 3 hour buckets in Excel
  • Group arbitrary text values in Excel
  • Map text to numbers in Excel
  • Map inputs to arbitrary values in Excel

General

  • How to calculate percent change in Excel
  • Currency vs Accounting Format in Excel
  • Count cells that do not contain many strings in Excel
  • How to generate random number weighted probability in Excel
  • How to get random value from list or table in Excel
© 2026 xlsoffice . All Right Reserved. | Teal Smiles | Abbreviations And Their Meaning