Chapter 2: Entering and Editing Worksheet Data
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For more control over what gets deleted, you can choose Home ➪ Editing ➪ Clear. This com-
mand’s drop-down list has six choices.Clear All Clears everything from the cell—its contents, formatting, and cell comment (if
it has one).
Clear Formats Clears only the formatting and leaves the value, text, or formula.
Clear Contents Clears only the cell’s contents and leaves the formatting. This has the
same effect as pressing Delete.
Clear Comments Clears the comment (if one exists) attached to the cell.
Clear Hyperlinks Removes hyperlinks contained in the selected cells. The text and for-
matting remain, so the cell still looks like it has a hyperlink, but it no longer functions as
a hyperlink.
Remove Hyperlinks Removes hyperlinks in the selected cells, including the cell
formatting.Clearing formats doesn’t clear the background colors in a range that has been designated as a table unless you’ve
replaced the table style background colors manually. See Chapter 4, “Working with Excel Ranges and Tables,” for
more about tables.
Replacing the contents of a cell
To replace the contents of a cell with something else, just activate the cell and type
your new entry, which replaces the previous contents. Any formatting applied to the cell
remains in place and is applied to the new content.You can also replace cell contents by dragging and dropping or by copying and pasting data
from another cell. In both cases, the cell formatting will be replaced by the format of the
new data. To avoid pasting formatting, choose Home ➪ Clipboard ➪ Paste ➪ Values (V), or
Home ➪ Clipboard ➪ Paste ➪ Formulas (F).Editing the contents of a cell
If the cell contains only a few characters, replacing its contents by typing new data usually
is easiest. However, if the cell contains lengthy text or a complex formula and you need
to make only a slight modification, you probably want to edit the cell rather than re-enter
information.When you want to edit the contents of a cell, you can use one of the following ways to
enter Edit mode:■ (^) Double-click the cell to edit the cell contents directly in the cell.
■ (^) Select the cell and press F2 to edit the cell contents directly in the cell.