Rows and columns in excel worksheet

A worksheet in Excel is made up of Rows and Columns. Intersection of a Row and column in an Excel worksheet is a rectangle called as a Cell. Cells store a value, a formula, or text. An Excel worksheet contains very large number of cells. A cell is a smallest building block of an Excel worksheet.

Rows in Excel worksheet

Similar to a Row in any table, a Row in Excel worksheet runs horizontally. Rows in Excel worksheet are identified by Row numbers. Row numbers in Excel 2019 starts from 1 and ends in 1048576.

Columns in Excel worksheet

Similar to a Column in any table, a Column in Excel worksheet runs vertically. Columns in Excel worksheet are identified by Column letters. Column letters in Excel 2019 starts from «A» and ends in «XFD».

Cells in Excel worksheet

Intersection of a Row and column in an Excel worksheet is a rectangle called as a Cell. A Cell can store one data at a time. The data can be text, number, formula, date etc.

A Cell in Excel worksheet is identified by a Cell Address consisting of Column letter and Row number. Below image shows a Cell in Excel worksheet.

The Cell shown below is the intersection of Column «C» and Row «5». Therefore the Cell address of cell shown below is «C5».

The thick border outline around the selected Cell in above image indicates that it is the Active cell in Excel Worksheet. The Active cell is where the focus is on and where the data will be entered when a key is typed on keyboard. Below image shows the Actice Cell as C5, which is hi-lighted with a thick border. The Cell address of Active cell is displayd in Cell Name box in Excel formula bar.

In Excel, each worksheet is organized into a grid of rows, columns, and cells. Individual cells can also be grouped into ranges, which are just series of cells strung together. These items interact with each other to form the basic layout of an Excel document.

Cell addresses

Take a look at the below diagram, which shows rows, columns, cells, and ranges all in one place:

As you can see, Excel labels columns by letter. You can see column labels highlighted along the top of the screen: A, B, C, etc. Rows are highlighted along the side of the screen, and are organized by number: 1, 2, 3, etc.

At the intersection of each row and column is a cell, which is just one of the boxes on the grid of a worksheet. Each cell has a unique address, obtained by comining the column letter and the row number of the given cell. For example, cell B4 lies at the intersection of column B and row 4.

Whenever you select a cell, you’ll see its address appear in the cell address box directly above the labels columns A and B. You can also type a cell name into this box and press Enter to automatically zoom to a given cell.

Cell ranges

Multiple cells can be grouped into ranges, which are adjacent series of cells. Take, for example, the following screenshot:

In this worksheet, we’ve highlighted the range of all cells between C3 and C6. When we want to talk about a range like this, we do so by using the colon (:) character between the first and last cells in the range, like so: C3:C6. This notation means «the range of all cells between C3 and C6».

We can also talk about ranges that span multiple rows and columns, like B2:E7 below:

Manipulating rows and columns

There are many things you can do to manipulate a row or column; but before you can do to, you must select it.

To select a single row or column, click the label of that row or column at the left or top of the screen:

To select multiple rows or columns, click the label of one row or column and keep the mouse button held down, then drag over to select multiple:

To select all rows and all columns in a worksheet, click the small box that appears at the intersection of row 1 and column A:

Once you have rows or columns selected, right click their labels to bring up the row / column manipulation menu, which appears in the screenshot below.

This menu has a variety of functions, and will allow you to do any of the following:

• Cut / copy / paste rows or columns. Use this if you would like to duplicate rows or columns, or if you would like to rearrange their order.
• Insert new rows or columns. This will insert new rows above — or new columns to the left of — the row or column you have selected.
• Delete rows or columns. This will delete the rows or columns in question entirely and collapse the remainder of the sheet in to take the place of the removed row or column.
• Format rows or columns. Use this option to apply formatting to each cell within a row or column. Potential formatting options include text colors, background colors, and borders.
• Hide and unhide rows or columns. Use this option to temporarily hide or unhide rows or columns. This makes it easier to manage large spreadsheets by hiding non-critical data.

You can also resize a row or column by hovering your mouse over the divider between two rows or two columns, then clicking and dragging to expand or contract it.

Manipulating cells

Cells can be manipulated just like rows and columns. To do so, select a cell or range, then right click. The cell manipulation menu will appear.

This menu allows you to:

• Cut / copy / paste cells. Use this to duplicate cells from one place in your worksheet to another.
• Insert new cells. Note that when you insert a cell, you’ll have to tell Excel how to do it (you must either shift rows or columns in the existing sheet to accomodate the new cell).
• Delete cells. Like insertion, deletion also causes a shift in your sheet. Excel will ask you where you want cells to shift when you delete a cell.
• Format cells. Use this option to apply formatting to each cell. Potential formatting options include text colors, background colors, and borders.

Those are the basics of row, column, and cell manipulation in Excel. There’s much more to learn — we’ve only scratched the surface! — but you should now have a solid foundation on which to build. Questions or comments? Let us know below!

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Worksheets in Excel

While working with Excel, often you come across terms worksheet, Rows, Columns and Cells. In this tutorial we will briefly understand these terms along with their fundamentals and the operation (create, copy, paste, delete, etc) performed in them.

Worksheet

A Worksheet is a single page containing a collection of cells where the user can store, update and manipulate the data. Worksheet is also called a spreadsheet. It is made up of rows, columns and cells.

NOTE: An Excel workbook can contain several worksheets.

In Excel, individual data cells in a worksheet are defined and organized with the help of the vertical column and horizontal row that are combined to form a cell reference, unlike A1, B25, or R867.

The specifications for Excel Worksheet current versions include:

• Number of Rows per Worksheet: 1,048,576
• Number of Rows per Worksheet: 16,384
• Total cells per Worksheet: 17,179,869,184

Select a Worksheet

Whenever you open an Excel workbook, by default, Excel will take you to the Sheet1 worksheet. As you can see in the below image, the name of the worksheet ‘Sheet1’ is displayed on its sheet tab at the bottom of the windowpane. Though you can rename it anytime, we will cover the steps down in this tutorial.

Insert a Worksheet

Excel enables the user to insert multiple worksheets as per their requirement. To insert a new worksheet in excel, click on the plus (+) symbol located at the bottom of the windowpane. By default, the new worksheet will be named ‘SheetN’ where N represents an integer number 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,…., n.

In the below example, we have added a new worksheet named Sheet2.

Output

Rename a Worksheet

To rename your worksheet with a customized and appropriate name following the below steps.

1. Right-click on the sheet tab for which you wish to change the name.
2. The toolbar window will appear. Choose the Rename option.
   
3. Type your preferred name. For instance, in the below screenshot, we have renamed ‘Sheet1’ to Sales 2021.
   

Move a Worksheet

Excel allows the user to move and locate their worksheet in any order. Click on your worksheet sheet tab and drag it to your preferred location.

For instance, in the below example, we have dragged Sales 2021 before the ‘Sheet 2’ sheet tab.

Output

Delete a Worksheet

Deleting a worksheet in excel is very simple, follow the below steps:

1. Scroll down to the bottom and right click on a sheet tab.
   
2. The dialog box will appear. Click on delete
   
3. The sheet will be immediately deleted.

Copy a Worksheet

While working many times, the Excel users require copying and pasting the data of one worksheet to another and making some changes. Excel provides easy steps to copy the data of one worksheet to another.

1. Right-click on the sheet tab that you want to copy.
2. The toolbar window will appear. Click on the ‘Move or Copy’ option.
   
3. The ‘Move or Copy’ dialog box will be displayed. In the Before Sheet section, select the ‘move to end’ option and make sure to check in the ‘create a copy’.
   
4. Click OK. Your data will be copied to the new worksheet.

Rows run horizontally across the worksheet ranging from 1 to 1048576. A row is identified by the number on the left side of the row, from where the row originates.

Insert a Row in Excel

Many Excel users often need to insert a row in the worksheet to organize or manipulate their data.

1. Select and right-click on the cell within the row where you want to insert a new row.
   
2. The dialog box will be displayed. Choose Insert.
   
3. The insert dialog box will appear. Choose the ‘Entire row’
   
4. It will insert a new row at the top of your selected cell.
   

Delete a Row in Excel

While working with Excel users need to delete a row in the worksheet to organize or manipulate their data. It’s a lot easier to delete a row in excel.

1. Select any cell within the row that you need to delete. Right-click on the cell.
   
2. The dialog box will be displayed. Choose Delete.
   
3. The Delete dialog box will appear. Choose the ‘entire row‘ option.
   
4. The entire row will be immediately deleted.
   

COLUMNS

Columns run vertically downward across the worksheet ranging from A to XFD (in total 16384 columns). A column is identified by a column header on the top of the column, from where the column originates.

Insert a Column in Excel

Many Excel users often need to insert a column in the worksheet to organize or manipulate their data.

1. Select and right-click on the cell within the column where you want to insert a new column.
   
2. The dialog box will be displayed. Choose Insert.
   
3. The insert dialog box will appear. Choose the ‘Entire column’
   
4. It will insert a new column at the left of your selected cell.
   

CELLS

Cells are small rectangular boxes in the worksheet where we enter data. A cell is the intersection of a row and column. It is identified by row number and column header. In Excel, each cell is identified using a set of coordinates or positions, such as A1 (where A represents a column and 1 represents the row), B2, or M16.

You can perform several operations with cells in Excel, unlike changing the font style, font size, background color, text alignment, format painter, wrap text, and conditional formatting.

Excel provides the feature to select multiple cells at one time. A group of selected cells is collectively known as cell range. With cell range instead of a single cell address, the user refers to a cell range utilizing the cell addresses of the selected first and last cells, separated by a colon. For instance, a cell range covering B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9, and B10 would be addressed as B1:B10.

Cell Range: B1: B10

Now, as we have covered the basics, let’s move towards the operation that could be applied to a cell.

Select a cell

To perform any operation, i.e., to write, edit, delete, format, the user must first select a cell. Below given are the steps to select a cell in Excel:

1. With the help of your cursor, click on any cell.
2. Your cell is now selected, and you will notice a rectangular borderaround the same cell, and the column and the row heading will be highlighted.
   
3. The cell will remain selectedunless and until the user points the cursor to another cell.

Select cell range

1. Click on the first cell from which to start the selection. Hold and drag your cursor to the last adjoining cells where you want to end the cell range.
2. Once done, release the cursor, and the desired cell range would be selected.
   
3. The cell will remain selectedunless and until the user points the cursor to another cell.

Cell content

Any data you enter in your Excel worksheet is stored in a cell. Each cell can hold various types of information, including string, numbers, formatting, formulas, and functions.

1. String (Text)

Cells can hold string values, unlike alphabets, numbers, and dates.

2. Formatting properties

Cells also include formatting properties that improve the appearance of your cell content. For instance, percentages can be displayed as 0.55 or 55%. You can make the cell content in Bold, Italics, change its font color, font size, or change its background color.

3. Formulas and functions

Cells can include predefined or customized formulas and functions that are helpful in calculations. For example, SUM(A2:A5) will add the number stored in each cell and give you the output.

Insert content to a cell

1. Click and select the cellwhere you want to insert the content.
   
2. Type in the desired data into the selected cell, then click the enter button or move your cursor to another cell. The content will be shown in the cell and the formula bar.
   

Delete cell content

1. Click and select the cell.
   
2. To delete the cell content, press the Delete or Backspace key from your keyboard.
   
3. If you want to delete multiple cells, select the cell range and press the Delete key.
   

Note: Delete Key can delete the content of multiple cells at once, whereas the Backspace key only deletes the data of a single cell at a time.

Delete cell(s)

People often get confused between deleting the cell content and deleting the cell itself, but there is a significant difference. If you delete the content, the cell will remain, and only the content gets omitted, whereas if you delete the cell, the cells below shift up or are shifted left and replace the deleted cell.

1. Click and select the cell(s).
   
2. Right-click on the cell. The dialog box will be displayed. Choose Delete.
   
3. The given below Delete dialog box will occur. Choose the ‘entire row’ option.
   
4. The cell will be immediately deleted and the cells lying below will shift up.
   

Drag and drop cells

Instead of copying and pasting the data, you can use the drag and drop option to move cell content from one cell to another.

1. Click and select the cell(s).
2. Point your cursor over the border of the selected cell(s) till it changes to a black cross with four arrows.
   
3. Drag your mouse cursor to the cell you prefer to paste the content. At this point the mouse pointer will change to a dotted rectangle.
   
4. Release the cursor, and the content will be cut from the original cell and pasted in the selected location.