Lesson 14

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Inserting and Deleting Columns and Rows

Practice Exercise 5: Inserting and deleting columns using the Ribbon menu and using the mouse.

ABC
1South CarolinaUnited States of AmericaNorth America
2Florence CountySouth CarolinaUnited States of America
3Richland CountyNorth CarolinaCanada

Figure 1

STEP 1​: Enter the following data into cells A1 through C3 as shown in FIGURE 1.


STEP 2: ​Move the mouse up to the column A header (mouse symbol is now a downward pointing black arrow) and mouse click the header ​(FIGURE 2). Column A will be highlighted.

Figure 2

STEP 3A: Move mouse up to Ribbon Cells section and select the Insert Command down arrow ​(FIGURE 3).

​STEP 3B: Select Insert Sheet Columns from the drop-down menu.

Figure 3

STEP 4A: Inserted column is now column A and all other columns have been moved over one column (former Column A is now B, former Column B is now C) (FIGURE 4).

​STEP 4B: ​Select the Undo icon to retrieve Column A

Remember: Excel always inserts a column to the LEFT of the highlighted column.

Figure 4

STEP 5: ​You can insert columns using the mouse shortcut menu (FIGURE 5). Move the mouse up to the column A header (mouse symbol is now a downward pointing black arrow) and mouse click the header. Column A will be highlighted.

Figure 5

STEP 6A: Right-button mouse click anywhere on the highlighted column. You will see a mouse shortcut menu appear as shown on the right (FIGURE 6).
Notice above the shortcut menu is a small toolbar with formatting controls. This is known as the Mini-toolbarIt appears when you right click the mouse or when you highlight data in a cell. There is a section about it in this guide in Module 3/Section 3.3.1

STEP 6B: ​Select Insert from the drop-down menu (Since Column A is highlighted, Excel knows it is a column that is to be inserted).

Figure 6

​STEP 6C: Inserted column is now column A and all other columns have been moved over one column (former Column A is now B, former Column B is now C, etc. (FIGURE 7).

Figure 7

STEP 7: ​Move the mouse over to the column A header (mouse symbol is now a downward pointing black arrow) and mouse click the header (FIGURE 8). Column A will be highlighted.

Figure 8

STEP 8A: Move mouse up to Ribbon Cells section and select the Delete Command down arrow (FIGURE 9).
 
STEP 8B: Select Delete Sheet Columns from the drop-down menu.

Figure 9

STEP 9A: Column A has been deleted and all other columns have been moved over one column (former Column B is now A, Column C is now B, etc) (FIGURE 10).

Figure 10

STEP 9B: ​Select Undo to retrieve Column A (FIGURE 11).

Figure 11

STEP 10: ​You can also delete columns using the mouse shortcut menu (FIGURE 12). Move the mouse up to the column A header (mouse symbol is now a downward pointing black arrow) and mouse click the header. Column A will be highlighted.

Figure 12

STEP 11A: ​Right-button mouse click anywhere on the highlighted column (FIGURE 13). You will see a shortcut menu appear as shown on the right.
 
STEP 11B: Select Delete from the drop-down menu (Since Column A is highlighted, Excel knows it is a column A that is to be deleted).

Figure 13

STEP 12A: ​Column A has been deleted and all other columns have been moved over one column (former Column B is now A, former Column C is now B, etc) (FIGURE 14).  

Figure 14

STEP 12B: Select Undo to retrieve Column A data (FIGURE 15).

Figure 15

Practice Exercise 6: Inserting and deleting rows using the Ribbon menu and using the mouse.

STEP 1: Move the mouse over to the row 1 header (mouse symbol is now a right pointing black arrow) and mouse click the header. Row 1 will be highlighted (FIGURE 16).

Figure 16

STEP 2A:  Move mouse up to Ribbon Cells section and select the Insert Command down arrow (FIGURE 17).

STEP 2B: Select Insert Sheet Rows from the drop-down menu.

Figure 17

STEP 3A: Inserted row is now row 1 and all other rows have been increased one row number; (former row 1 is now 2, former row 2 is now 3, etc) (FIGURE 18).

STEP 3B: Select Undo to delete the inserted row.

Figure 18

STEP 4: You can also insert rows using the mouse shortcut menu. Move the mouse over to the row 1 header (mouse symbol is now a right pointing black arrow) and mouse click the header. Row 1 will be highlighted (FIGURE 19).

Figure 19

STEP 5A: Right-button mouse click anywhere on the highlighted row. You will see a shortcut menu appear as shown on the right (FIGURE 20).
 
STEP 5B: Select Insert from the drop-down menu (Since row 1 is highlighted, Excel knows it is a row that is to be inserted).

Figure 20

STEP 6: Inserted row is now row 1 and all other rows have increased one row (former row 1 is now 2, former row 2 is now 3, etc) (FIGURE 21).

Figure 21

STEP 7: Move the mouse over to the row 1 header (mouse symbol is now a right pointing black arrow) and mouse click the header. Row 1 will be highlighted (FIGURE 22).

Figure 22

STEP 8A: Move mouse up to Ribbon Cells section and select the Delete down arrow (FIGURE 23).
 
 
STEP 8B: Select Delete Sheet Rows from the drop-down menu.

Figure 23

STEP 9: Row 1 has been deleted and all other rows have been decreased one row (former row 2 is now row 1, row 3 is now 2, etc) (FIGURE 24).

Figure 24

STEP 10: ​You can also delete rows using the mouse shortcut menu. Move the mouse over to the row  1 header (mouse symbol is now a right pointing black arrow) and mouse click the header. Row 1 will be highlighted (FIGURE 25).

Figure 25

STEP 11A: Right-button mouse click anywhere on the highlighted row. You will see a shortcut menu appear as shown in FIGURE 26.
 
STEP 11B: Select Delete from the drop-down menu (Since row 1 is highlighted, Excel knows it is row 1 that is to be deleted).

Figure 26

STEP 12A: Row 1 has been deleted and all other rows have been decreased one row (former row 2 is now row 1, former row 3 is now 2, etc.) (FIGURE 27).

Figure 27

STEP 12B: Select Undo to retrieve Row 1 (FIGURE 28).

Figure 28

END OF LESSON

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