Chapter 2: Entering and Editing Worksheet Data
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Erasing the contents of a cell .....................................................................................
To erase the contents of a cell, just click the cell and press Delete. To erase more than one cell,
select all the cells that you want to erase and then press Delete. Pressing Delete removes the cell’s
contents but doesn’t remove any formatting (such as bold, italic, or a different number format) that
you may have applied to the cell.For more control over what gets deleted, you can choose Home ➪ Editing ➪ Clear. This com-
mand’s drop-down list has five choices:l Clear All: Clears everything from the cell — its contents, its formatting, and its cell com-
ment (if it has one).
l Clear Formats: Clears only the formatting and leaves the value, text, or formula.l (^) Clear Contents: Clears only the cell’s contents and leaves the formatting.
l Clear Comments: Clears the comment (if one exists) attached to the cell.
l (^) Clear Hyperlinks: Removes hyperlinks contained in the selected cells. The text remains,
but the cell no longer functions as a clickable hyperlink.
Note
Clearing formats doesn’t clear the background colors in a range that has been designated as a table unless you
replace the table style background colors manually. n
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.Tip
You can also replace cell contents by dragging and dropping or by pasting data from the Clipboard. 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). n
Editing the contents of a cell .....................................................................................
If the cell contains only a few characters, replacing its contents by typing new data usually is easi-
est. 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 cell-
edit mode.