Category: Excel Basics

In accounting, statistics or data analysis work, copying worksheets from other workbooks to an existing workbook or to a new workbook is a simple and frequent thing that happens almost every day. Everyone has their own tips or tricks to get around it. This article will describe a common and convenient way to copy all worksheets or some worksheets from other different workbooks into a new one.

Read More: How to Copy a Hidden Sheet to a New Visible Sheet in Excel

Copy Sheets from Other Workbooks to a New Workbook via Move or Copy Feature

Step1: Open the worksheet that contains the sheets you want to copy, and also open the workbook you want to copy those sheets to (if you have such a workbook).

Step2: Hold down the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard and select the worksheet you want to copy to the new workbook.

If you want to copy all the worksheets, hold down the “Shift” key and select the first and the last worksheet, then all the worksheets are selected.

Note that in a Mac workbook you should use the “Command” key instead of the “Ctrl” key.

Step3: Right-click on any of the selected sheets, select “Move or Copy” in the context menu.

Step 4: In “Move or Copy” dialog box, click the drop-down list in “To book” to select a workbook you want to copy to.

Step 5: Select a workbook you want to copy to. You can select an existing workbook or click “(new book)” to create a new workbook. Note that only the opened workbooks are listed in “To book” drop-down list.

Step 6: Select an existing workbook, for example, select “Book 5”, check on “Create a copy“.

Step 7: Click “OK” in “Move or Copy” dialog. The selected worksheets will be copied to the opened existing workbook “Book 5”.

If you select “(New Book)” to copy the selected worksheet, a new workbook will be created and opened and the selected worksheet will be pasted.

Step 8: Repeat above steps to copy sheets from the other workbooks to the destination workbook.

Conclusion

After reading this article, you will know how to select non-consecutive worksheets in a workbook by holding down the “Ctrl” key, and how to create a copy of these selected worksheets in an existing workbook or in a new workbook by using the “Move or Copy” feature. The “Move or Copy” feature helps us move worksheets inside or outside of a workbook in a convenient way and also provides the option to create a copy directly in a specific workbook.

In some cases, you may want to perform data analysis on every other row in a table, such as calculating averages or performing other calculations. By copying every other row, you can quickly create a new table with the necessary data for analysis.

For example, suppose there are multiple rows in a spreadsheet and we want to extract only the odd or even rows.

In fact, extracting odd or even rows is equivalent to copying every other row in the original table to a new location. This post will show you some ways to copy every other row to another location in Excel. After reading this post, you can choose anyone to apply it in your daily work.

Read More: Copy Non-Adjacent Cells or Columns or Rows in Excel

Copy The Every Other Row by Traditional Copy and Paste Features

If you only have a few rows to extract and copy to another location, you can simply use the traditional copy and paste function by pressing the “Ctrl” key to select the multiple rows you want to copy.

Here are the steps:

Step 1: Select the first line that you want to copy. In this example, select the range A1:B1.

Step 2: Hold down the “Ctrl” key and select every other odd row that you want to copy.

Step 3: Press “Ctrl + C” on your keyboard to copy the selected odd rows.

Step 4: Select the first cell in the new location where you want to paste the copied rows.

Step 5: Right-click on the selected cell and choose “Paste” from the menu. You can also press “Ctrl + V” on your keyboard to paste the selected rows.

In this way, the selected rows are copied to the new location, and the copied rows are not separated.

Copy The Every Other Row by Filter Function

We can also copy every other row in a table to another location with the Filter function. We need to create a helper column to help us achieve it. Here are the specific steps.

Step 1: Create a helper column in column C. Populate the value “0” to the odd rows and the value “1” to the even rows.

Step 2: Select the helper column and click the “Filter” button on the “Data” tab in the ribbon.

Step 3: Click the dropdown arrow in the column header of the helper column that contains “0” and “1” numbers.

Step 4: Filter by value “0” and apply the filter.  Then only the odd number rows are visible. The even number rows are hidden.

Step 5: Select the filtered rows, press “Ctrl + C” to copy the selected rows.

Step 6:  Select the first cell in the new location and press “Ctrl + V” to paste the selected row. You may find that some rows are invisible because they are hidden.

Step 7. Click on “Filter” in the ribbon to clear the filter. All hidden rows are unhidden and visible. The selected rows are copied correctly to the new location.

Copy The Every Other Row by Fill Handle

If you want to keep a blank row between each selected row to keep the table structure unchanged, you can refer to the following steps.

Step 1: Create a simple formula “=A1” in cell D1.

This formula will help us copy the value of A1 to the currently selected cell.

Step 2: Keep D1 selected. Drag the handle to fill the formula to cell E1.

Due to the location change, the formula is updated to “=B1“.

Step 3: Select the range D1:E2. This range contains two short rows, row1(D1:E1) is the row copied from the original table by the fill formula and row2 is a blank row which is used to separate the copied rows.

Step 4: Drag the handle down so that the following rows are filled with reference to the rule. In this way, not only the values, but also the structure of the table is copied to the new location.

Conclusion

Copying every other row in Excel is a useful technique in a variety of situations, such as filtering data and data analysis. It can help simplify the process of working with large data sets and can make it easier to spot outliers in the data. You can choose the appropriate way to copy the every other row in Excel depending on the specific task at hand and the requirements of the project or analysis.

When you are working with a large dataset in a Excel spreadsheet, you may need to copy non-adjacent cells or columns or rows to perform various analyses, such as comparing data from different columns or rows. In this article, we will describe the method of copying non-adjacent cells or columns or rows in a worksheet.

Read More: Copy Cell Formatting from a Given Cell to Another Cell or a Range

Copy Non-Adjacent Cells in Excel Worksheet

Excel does not support copying multiple non-adjacent cells from different rows or columns, a warning message pops up when copying the non-adjacent cells. So in this example, we only copy non-adjacent cells in the same row or column to explain the method.

To copy non-adjacent cells in Excel, you can follow these steps:

Step1: Select the first cell you want to copy, for example, click on cell A2. Hold down the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard.

Step2: While still holding down the “Ctrl” key, select the other cells that you want to copy.

Step3: Once you have selected all the cells  that you want to copy, release the “Ctrl” key.

Step4: Right-click on any of the selected cells and click on “Copy” or press “Ctrl + C” on your keyboard.

Step5: Select the cell where you want to paste the copied cells.

Step6: Right-click on the cell and click on “Paste” or press “Ctrl + V” on your keyboard. After this step, the selected non-adjacent cells are copied and pasted to another location properly.

Copy Non-Adjacent Rows or Columns in Excel Worksheet

You can also follow the steps below to copy non-adjacent rows or columns to another location in worksheet.

Step1: Select the first row or column that you want to copy by clicking on its header (the letter or number at the top or left of the row or column). In this example, click on the first column header “A” to select the entire column.

Step2: Hold down the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard and select the other rows or columns that you want to copy. You can select as many non-adjacent rows or columns as you want.

In this example, hold down the “Ctrl” key and select both column C and column D by dragging the mouse.

Step3: Once you have selected all the rows or columns that you want to copy, right-click on any of the selected rows or columns and choose “Copy” from the context menu.

Step4: Navigate to the location in the worksheet where you want to paste the copied rows or columns.

Step5: Right-click on the cell where you want to start the paste and choose “Paste” from the context menu.

The copied non-adjacent columns will be pasted into the new location.

Conclusion

Overall, you can use the normal copy and paste features to copy non-adjacent rows or columns. Just make sure to hold down the “Ctrl” key while selecting the rows or columns you want to copy, and while clicking on the cell where you want to start the paste.

Except Copy & Paste method to copy a value from another cell, we can also copy the value we want to copy by using its cell reference, for example, if the value is saved in cell A1, we can build a formula “=A1” to copy the value. However, this method only supports copying values from another cell, while ignoring the formatting, size and font.

Read More: Copy Cell Formatting from a Given Cell to Another Cell or a Range

If we want to duplicate cells with exactly the same size, font, formatting and values, we must consider other methods to achieve it. This post provides the way to make the copied cells with the same reference format.

Reference Formatting and Value from Another Cell by Excel Paste Special Feature

To reference formatting and value from another cell by Excel Paste Special, you can follow these steps:

Step1: Select the cell you want to copy the formatting and value from. In this example, the cell is A1.

Step2: Press Ctrl+C to copy the cell.

Step3: Select the cell you want to apply the formatting and value to. In this example, we select C1 to create a copy.

Step4: Right-click on the selected cell and choose “Paste Special” -> “Paste Picture Link” from the menu.

Step5: After all the formatting and value are applied to the selected cell(s).

The “Paste Special” function can be used for a variety of purposes, including copying formulas, comments, validation, and more. Make sure you select the appropriate method in the “Paste Special” menu for the desired effect.

You can see that we can get a duplicate cell by “Paste Picture” method as well. Actually, in Excel, “Paste Picture” and “Paste Picture Link” are two different options for pasting a picture into a worksheet.

“Paste Picture” will insert a copy of the picture into the worksheet, and the picture will be embedded in the worksheet. The picture will be visible even if the original source file is deleted or moved.

“Paste Picture Link” will insert a link to the picture into the worksheet, rather than embedding the picture itself. If the original picture file is moved or deleted, the picture in the worksheet will not be visible and will display a broken link icon.

Copying cell formatting from another cell and apply on another range or some ranges can be useful in several scenarios. It can save time, ensure consistency, and reduce the chance of errors when working with large sets of data in Excel. This post shares two tips to format ranges as same as the format from another cell in the Excel worksheet.

Read More: Copy the Specified Cell Formatting to Another Cell or Cells

Example.

Format Ranges from Another Cell’s Formatting by Format Painter Tool

You can use the “Format Painter” tool in Excel to apply the same formatting from one cell to a range of cells.

Here are the steps:

Step1: Select the cell that has the formatting you want to copy. In this example, you can select cell “B2” or any cell in the range “B5:B9” that has the same cell format.

Step2: Click on the “Format Painter” button in the “Home” tab of the Excel ribbon. The cursor will change to a paintbrush.

Step3: Select the range of cells that you want to apply the formatting to. The copied cell’s formatting will be applied to the entire range.

Format Ranges from Another Cell’s Formatting by “Paste Special” Feature

Alternatively, you can also use the “Paste Special” feature to apply formatting from one cell to a range of cells. “Special Paste” -> “Format” enables you to copy the cell style and formatting from another cell and paste it into the target cell or cell area without copying the values and formulas.

Here are the steps:

Step1: Select the cell that has the formatting you want to copy. You can select cell B2 in this example because it contains the style and format for a price.

Step2: Press “Ctrl+C” to copy the cell.

Step3: Select the range of cells that you want to apply the formatting to. In this example, select the range E5:E9 where you want to keep consistency with the price’s format.

Step4: Right-click on the selection and choose “Paste Special“-> “Formatting” from the context menu. The formatting from the original cell will be applied to the entire range.

Conclusion

Formatting a range as same as a given cell’s formatting is easily achieved by above two ways. After running the above steps, the values in the SALES column match the style and formatting of cell B2. You can choose either one you like to format your ranges in work.

Copying cell formatting is one of the most common operations in Excel worksheets. This post describes two ways to copy the specified cell formatting to another cell or a range of cells.

Read More: Copy Cell Formatting from a Given Cell to Another Cell or a Range

Copy Specified Cell Formatting by Format Painter

To copy the formatting of a specified cell to other cells in Excel by Format Painter, here are the steps:

Step1: Select the cell whose formatting you want to copy. In this example, the cell is B3.

Step2: Click on the “Format Painter” button in the “Clipboard” section of the “Home” tab. The cursor will change to a paintbrush.

Step3: Select the cell or range of cells where you want to apply the formatting. In this example, the cells are E3 and E6, and you can hold down the Control key so that both cells are selected.

Step4: Release the mouse button. The formatting will be applied to the selected cells.

Copy Specified Cell Formatting by Paste Special

Alternatively, you can use the “Paste Special” feature to copy and apply only specific formatting attributes. Here are the steps:

Step1: Select the cell whose formatting you want to copy. In this example, the cell is B3.

Step2: Press the “Ctrl+C” keys on your keyboard or right-click and select “Copy“.

Step3: Select the cell or range of cells where you want to apply the formatting. In this example, the cells are E3 and E6.

Step4: Right-click on the selected cell(s) and select “Paste Special” from the context menu.

Step5: In the “Paste Special” dialog box, select “Formatting“. The formatting will be applied to the selected cells.

Conclusion

You can easily copy the formatting of one cell onto multiple cells without having to manually adjust each one. This can be especially useful when working on complex data sets that require consistent formatting throughout.