Paste special

Any cell in excel contains three different elements. This is the value, formatting and a formula.

When you copy a cell and paste it into another cell like you would normally do, then the whole contents is pasted. This means the value, formula and the formatting. By going into paste special you can select to exclude some of these options when pasting.

You can find paste special either by using the right clicking on your mouse or by going on the home toolbar and selecting the option under paste

When selecting paste special, the following will screen will show.

Currently all will be pasted like normal. You can select other option for example only copy values. This will take out the formula and only paste the value that was in the cell when you pressed copy.

Transpose: When you select transpose, you can copy cell horizontally into vertically and vice versa.

For example if I had dates like follows:

You can paste these cells, press copy and go into paste special, and click on transpose.

When you click on OK, the text will be copied like follows:

Dividing, multiplying, adding and subtracting with paste special: You can also copy any number and then when you click on either divide, multiply, add or subtract on the paste special, then the cells you are selecting will be divided, multiplied, added or subtracted by this number. You will also have to select formula.

For example, let’s say we copy the number 1000. We then select more than one number and then go to paste special. If we select formula and then divide, then the numbers we are selecting will be divided by the number 1000

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