Unit 5.  Manipulating cells (II).

We are going to look at the various techniques availible to duplicate cells within a calculation sheet, in order to know which is the most suitable one to use when performing any given operation.

Copying cells using the Clipboard.

The copy operation duplicates a cell or a cell range to another position. When we use the clipboard two operations enter into the game - Copy and Paste. The Copy function duplicates the cells selected to the windows clipboard, and the Paste function copies the information in the clipboard to where we are situated.

To copy cells to a different position we need to take it in 2 stages:

In the first stage we need to copy the cells to the clipboard:

Select the cells to copy

Select the Edit menu.

Select the Copy option.

Or, click on the Copy button on the toolbar.

Note how a line appears marked around the copied cells, indicating that the information is situated in the clipboard.

In the second stage we need to transfer the information from the clipboard to the sheet:

Select the cells over which you want to copy.

Select the Edit menu.

Select the Paste option.

Or, click on the Paste button on the toolbar.

Be careful, as when copying cells over other cells that are not empty the contents of these cells will be erased.

In step 4 it is not necessary to select the entire range over which you want to paste, as when a cell is selected Excel2003 extends the paste area to adjust it to the size and form of the copied area. The selected cell will be the top left corner of the paste area.

To remove the mark from around the copied area press the ESC key, and while you have the marking line you can paste the range again in other cells without the need to copy again

With the clipboard we can paste up to 24 objects in it with succesive copies.

When the Clipboard has more than one object to paste, the Clipboard bar will appear to the right of the window. If it does not appear, select the Office clipboard option from the Edit... menu.

This bar has the aspect of the figure to the right.

In our case we can see that there are 3 objects to paste.

To paste one of these, clic on the object to paste.

To paste all of the objects at the same time, clic on the button .

And if we want to empty the clipboard, clic on the button .

If we do not want to see the Clipboard bar, clic on the button to close the panel.

We can also choose whether we want this bar to appear automatically or not when we copy an element. For this:

Clic on the button.

Select the Show Office Clipboard automatically option, to activate it in case we want to see it automatically, or to deactivate it if not.

On dropping down the options button we can also activate some of the operations described next:

If we activate the Collect without showing office clipboard option it will copy the contents of the clipboard without showing it.

If we activate the Show office clipboard icon on taskbar option, the clipboard icon will appear on the taskbar (next to the system time).

If we activate the Show status near taskbar when copying option it will show a message informing you of the number of elements copied at the bottom right of the window.

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