March 27, 2008

Excel – The AutoSum with More

I'm sure you're all aware of MS Excel's handy little AutoSum button and the way it will quickly insert the formula to sum up any range of data you happen to have lying around, right? But, wouldn't it be nice if you could get it to do a little more than sums, without a lot of extra work?

Good idea! Fortunately for all of us, AutoSum can be used for more than just sums.

Interested? Yeah, I thought you might be!

The key to getting more from your AutoSum is to notice the little down arrow just to the right of the button.

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Go ahead and give it a click.

You should find that a list of common functions becomes available, allowing you to use the button for more than just sums!

As usual, to get this to work for you, simply select a cell either below or to the right of your data range.

Next, click the down arrow on the AutoSum button and choose a function from the list.

Instantly, Excel creates the requested formula using the most obvious data range relative to the selected cell.

If you accept the data range selected by Excel, simply hit the Enter key.

If you need to adjust the data range for the formula, you can use the Shift key in combination with the arrow keys to enlarge or shrink the selection size.

If you're looking to simply move the data range without adjusting its size, you can use your mouse. Slowly run the mouse pointer over the dotted rectangle until it becomes a four-way arrow. Next, click, hold and drag the selection to the correct location on the worksheet and then release the mouse button.