Microsoft Excel 2003: Copying

We could repeat what we did to this point and fill in the Income and Expenses for each of the remaining columns. There is a simpler way to do this. Assuming our income and expense amounts are about the same, throughout the months, we want to copy the amounts in Column C to Columns D, E and F. This will require two “steps.”

Move your cursor to cell C6. First, we'll highlight what we want to copy; next we'll tell the spreadsheet where we want to place what we've copied. So, point to C6, hold down the left mouse button and drag down the column until cells C6 through C21 are high-lighted. Your highlighted area should look like the one on the left.



Now, point to Edit in the Menu bar. Click the left button. Point to Copy in the menu that appears. Click the left button. The menu disappears.


You will notice that once again, when you highlight an area, a marquee of running lights moves around the copy area. So, you’ll know you highlighted the correct area (image on right).


Now we'll tell the program where to copy the information. Point to cell D6, click and hold down the left mouse button and drag down and to the right to cell F21 (This will highlight three columns OCT, NOV, DEC to copy to.). When you have finished your highlighting, your screen should look like the one at the top of the next page



Now point to Edit in the Menu Bar again and click the left button. Point to Paste. Click left button. Wow !' All those numbers and dollar signs and formulas - EVERYTHING - was copied in a flash!! That sure saved us a lot of time.



Click on a cell away from the area where the numbers are located. This will “turn-off” the highlight. Tap the Esc key and the marquee will also disappear.


Note: You can also utilize the copy and paste buttons in the button bar to do this if you desire.


Change a few numbers in each of the months in both the income and expense areas to see how the spreadsheet works. (This will make the graphs we’ll create more realistic when we create them later in the tutorial.)

This would be a great time to Save again.