Excel is helping people and businesses solve some of the hardest tasks. This Microsoft application also makes it very easy and simple for anybody to compute some problems that would otherwise take a lot of time doing manually.
I can guess that you need an easy and faster way of solving some of these issues without much stress. Suppose now you are computing monthly expenses and profits with your Office calculator? Don't you think this can take a lot of your time? Definitely, you will waste an entire day adding numbers and computing manually using the same formula.
Now suppose you have one formula that you want to apply to the entire column easily without having to waste a lot of your time? One of the most common ways of doing this is by dragging the formula from cell1 to the last cell. Although this may bring you an answer, at last, it will consume a lot of your time and energy. Dragging is also a very boring way of doing your job.
When you need to apply the same formula as it is with this case, assume C1=A1*2, C2=A2*2, C3=A3*3……Cn=An*2, there's a simpler way of doing it. There are some tricky ways of doing this apart from dragging the formula all along. Now let's see three simple ways of doing this that will save you both time and energy.
Highlight + Enter
In most cases, the column you want to apply the formula to have a couple of cells and using a dragging fill handle may not be very convenient. There's a better way to use keyboard shortcuts and eventually achieve the same end results. To do this, use the below steps:
Firstly, enter the formula in the first cell, then highlight the remaining cells and press the Enter key
The same process applies when you want to apply the same formula to the entire row. You should start by selecting the row until where you want your formula to end. After this, press ENTER
Use the Fill Feature
You can perform the above operations the same way and end up getting the same results using the Fill Feature. On Excel Ribbon, there's a FILL Feature that you can make full use of. It is also another way of adding the same formula to the entire row or column easily and quickly. To do so, use the steps provided below:
Enter the formula to the first cell. Make sure that the formula is placed first on the cell of the column or the row you want to use.
Now select the entire column-This applies even for the Row. Select the column and proceed to the other step.
Get Home>Fill>Down-Now the same formula will be applied to the entire column with ease and the same results will be realized.
Kutools for Excel
Excel is one of the Microsoft applications with so many ways of working. The above methods are perfect for someone that wants to apply formulas to a blank row or Column. Have you asked yourself what could happen if you have to apply the same formula to rows and columns with data?
To perform such operations, you can use the Kutools for Excel Operation tools. This tool has more than 300 advanced features aimed at simplifying your operations with excel. This tool can end up simplifying not just the formulas but several other complicated tasks that you would wish to work on using Excel.
One of its most common uses is to combine worksheets with several clicks. It can as well work perfectly to merge cells without losing a single data and eventually paste to only visible cells. Now here is another use which means you can use the same tool to add formulas to the whole column or row without dragging. Now use the below steps to do this:
Select the column or the row you want to apply your data. In our example, select Column A.
Later click the Kutools>more>operation.
A clear picture is painted by the below screenshot.
From there, move on to the second step. After clicking the operation tools dialog box, then move on to select the custom in the operation box. Now enter the abbreviations of your formula or even enter the formula in full. In this case, we will multiply by 2 in the blank box in the custom section. Lastly, click the Ok button and wait as shown in the below screenshot.
The whole column will be filled with the formula that you had previously supplied. The answers revealed after using the formula will be directly proportional to the data used. So don't worry if your answers are not the same as the ones provided below.
Useful Takeaways
When you are operating, there are several things you should have in mind. As a matter of fact, you should make sure the data is accurate and the formula you want to use is genuine. You can as well implement the below takeaway.
- The results will be in the form of formulas for each cell if you check the create formulas option as shown above.
- Now if you check the Skip formula cells, the operation will skip and intentionally ignore the formula cells in the range you have selected.
Among all the above-provided formulas, my favorite is Kutools for excel formula. My reason is that the tool can handle common operations in multiple cells together. What this means is that you can perform some operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division altogether.
Now you have an informative article with all the best, easy and fast methods of applying a formula to the entire column without dragging. What makes the difference in how perfect you are in this case is to practice hard and at the same time keep using it from time to time.