Written by Let’s begin our review of Excel 2007 selection techniques by looking at techniques which involve using the mouse in conjunction with the keyboard. One of the most useful is click followed by Shift-click. This is particularly useful for selecting large ranges of data since it allows you to simply click on to opposite corners of the rectangular range of cells which you want to highlight. To use this technique, first click in the top left cell of the range you want to highlight. Next, scroll to make the bottom right cell of the proposed range visible. Finally, hold down the Shift key and click on the bottom right cell. All the cells between the two cells that you have clicked on will now be highlighted.
The other modifier key on your keyboard which can be used in conjunction with the mouse to make selections is the Control key. Whereas the mouse and Shift key combination only allows us to make rectangular selections using the mouse in conjunction with the control key we can make non-contiguous selections; in other words, we can select cells which aren’t adjacent to each other. Once highlighted, the next operation you perform will only apply to the highlighted cells. For example, we might copy the cells and paste them into a new worksheet.
A less well-known technique is to double-click one of the edges of the bold rectangle which surrounds the currently selected area while holding down the Shift key. You will notice that Excel always displays a bold border around the highlighted cells. By holding down the Shift key and double-clicking on the right-hand border, we can select all the cells up to the right-hand edge of the current range. The first column that contains blank cells acts as a boundary and Excel selects up to that boundary. Naturally, you can also extend the selection by holding down the Shift key and double-clicking on any of the other borders as well.
It is also possible to make making selections using the keyboard alone. Only a contiguous range of cells can be selected in this way. The trick here is to hold down the shift key and press one of the cursor keys. For example, pressing the right cursor key will select to the right; pressing the down cursor key will select adjacent rows; and so forth. You can also move in the opposite direction to remove cells from the selection.
To select all the cells up to the edge of a range, hold down the Control and Shift keys while pressing one of the cursor keys. For example, the right cursor key will select all the cells up to the right edge; the down arrow will select all the cells to the bottom; and so forth.
As well as the cursor keys, you can use the End key. Hold down the Control and Shift keys and press the End key to select all the cells to the bottom right of the current range.
The author is a trainer and developer with Macresource Computer Solutions, an independent computer training company offering Microsoft Excel 2007 Classes in London in London and throughout the UK.
Time to have a rest. Get yourself a cheap PlayStation 3 and enjoy the game.