How to drag Cells In Excel
Excel How-To: Moving and Relocating Rows and Columns
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let's talk about a few ways to move or
relocate rows or columns within a given
spreadsheet here we have our ABC company
worksheet up on the screen and it's
currently sorted in alphabetical order
by employee first-name according to
column a now say I have a need to move
the first record the first employee
record here that I'm highlighting
elsewhere within the sheet well one way
you might recall to move a range of data
is to first highlight the range then
move your cursor over the edge and get
that four-way arrow at which time you
click and drag down and relocate it
where you want to go now if I release it
early I'm going to be prompted by Excel
to replace the contents of the cells
that I have selected now and I don't
want to do that because I don't want to
replace an existing employee record so
I'm going to cancel that I'm going to go
back what I was doing before get that
four-way arrow click and drag down and
my only option really is to come down to
the end or further down and release her
name I would then need to delete the
empty row that was left void after
moving Annette's record downward but let
me undo and let me go back and show you
another way to move her record if you
highlight the record or the row that you
like to move move over the edge of that
record again get that four-way pointing
arrow holding your shift key while
holding in your shift key click in your
left mouse button and roll it downward
and you'll see you get a horizontal eye
beam or a horizontal bar that will
appear where the record would go once
you release it now I'm going to release
the left mouse button and then followed
by the shift key and there you see
Annette was relocated within my sheet
and her name did not replace any one's
all right let me undo and let me try
that again
I highlight and select the row that I'd
like to relocate position my cursor over
the edge of that selected range so I get
the four-way pointing arrow holding my
shift key
the left mouse button and roll downward
you see the horizontal beam appear now
if I move over in between two columns I
get a vertical eye beam and we don't
want to do that because we'll get
undesired results I want to make sure I
bring it down I keep that horizontal
line if I want to bring her to the end I
release the left mouse button followed
by releasing the shift key and that
brought her name down and that leaves no
row for me to delete as if I had just
moved her name now I'm going to undo
which would put her back up at the top
you can also do this with a column of
data say for example I want to take
column B here and I want to move the
department column over to the right I'm
going to move my cursor now over the
right edge of the selected range I get
the four-way pointing arrow holding the
shift key click the left mouse button
and roll it over to the right and you
want to make sure that you don't get the
horizontal little insertion beam that
horizont like we have right now we don't
want that we want to make sure we click
right over we drag the mouse right over
a column division and when I get that
vertical bar that's the one we want not
the one we see right now but we want
this one then release the left mouse
button release the shift key and you
might just need to widen your columns
but notice how that brought the Dept
column over and it didn't leave any
empty columns in my sheet you've got to
be careful how you do it especially when
you're moving columns rows are a little
bit easier let me go back again let me
bring this back to where it was okay
we're going to do this again I select
the department column I highlight what I
want to move I want to move my cursor
now since I'm moving it to the right I'm
going to move and hover my cursor over
the right side edge of that selected
range right now I see that four-way
arrow holding the shift key click the
left mouse button and roll to the right
now what we see right now with that
shaded horizontal line we don't want we
want to move over the vertical line that
separates the columns right when you see
that vertical line as you see right now
that's where if you release the buttons
it would then position that column if I
want to go further out to the right I go
out again make sure that the line
appears where you want it release the
left mouse button followed by releasing
shift button and there we just brought
the Department column over I'm going to
undo and bring it back to the way it was
this is another technique for relocating
data whether it's a row a record or a
column within a spreadsheet
