Dragging with the mouse in Excel to quickly highlight a block of adjacent cells is probably the most common way of selecting more than one cell in a worksheet. But, there may be times when the cells you want to highlight are not located beside each other. When this occurs, it's possible to select non-adjacent cells. Although selecting non-adjacent cells can be done solely with the keyboard, it's easier to do when you use the keyboard and mouse together.
The information in the article applies to Excel versions 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, and Excel for Mac.
The steps below cover selecting cells using only the keyboard. Use the Keyboard in Extended Mode To select non-adjacent cells with only the keyboard requires you to use the keyboard in Extended mode. Extended mode is activated by pressing the F8 key on the keyboard. You can shut off extended mode by pressing the Shift and F8 keys on the keyboard together. Select Single Non-Adjacent Cells
Select Adjacent and Non-Adjacent Cells Follow the steps below if the range you wish to select contains a mixture of adjacent and individual cells.
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Selecting cells is an important skill in Excel. Almost all of the information in Excel is saved in a cell or cell range; so before you can enter, edit, or format text, you first need to know how to select a cell or cell range. It's easy to select a single cell:
You can also select multiple rows by selecting a row header, pressing and holding the Shift key, and pressing the Up or Down arrow keys to select additional rows.
You can also select multiple columns by selecting a column header, pressing and holding the Shift key, and pressing the Left or Right arrow keys to select additional columns. A cell range is a group of cells that spreads over multiple rows or columns.
You can also select a cell range by selecting the first cell of the cell range, pressing and holding the Shift key and selecting the last cell of the cell range. You can even select the entire worksheet in Excel.
Excel selects the entire worksheet. All the previous selection methods can be used to select cells that are adjacent, or next to each other. However, sometimes you may need to select multiple cells or cell ranges that are separated. Here’s how to do that...
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