Page 117 - Excel 2013 All-in-One For Dummies

The reason that preselecting the cells works so well is that doing this con- strains the cell cursor to that range, provided that you press only the key- strokes shown in Table 1-3. This means that if you’re using the Enter key to move down the column as you enter data, Excel automatically positions the cell cursor at the beginning of the next column as soon as you complete the last entry in that column. Likewise, when using the Tab key to move the cell cursor across a row as you enter data, Excel automatically positions the cell cursor at the beginning of the next row in the table as soon as you complete the last entry in that row.
That way you don’t have to concentrate on repositioning the cell cursor at all when entering the table data; you can keep your attention on the printed copy from which you’re taking the data.
Table 1-3
Keystrokes
Enter Shift+Enter Tab Shift+Tab Ctrl+period (.)
Keystrokes for Moving Within a Selection
Movement
Moves the cell pointer down one cell in the selection (moves one cell to the right when the selection consists of a single row)
Moves the cell pointer up one cell in the selection (moves one cell to the left when the selection consists of a single row)
Moves the cell pointer one cell to the right in the selection (moves one cell down when the selection consists of a single column)
Moves the cell pointer one cell to the left in the selection (moves one cell up when the selection consists of a single column)
Moves the cell pointer from corner to corner of the cell selection
Data Entry 101 99
You can’t very well use this preselection method on data lists because they’re usually open-ended affairs to which you continually append new rows of data. The most efficient way to add new data to a new or existing data list is to format it as a table. (See Book II, Chapter 2.)
Getting Excel to put in the decimal point
Of course, if your keyboard has a ten-key entry pad, you’ll want to use it rather than the numbers on the top row of the keyboard to make your numeric entries in the spreadsheet. (Make sure that the Num Lock key is engaged, or you’ll end up moving the cell cursor rather than entering num- bers.) If you have a lot of decimal numbers (suppose that you’re building a financial spreadsheet with loads of dollars and cents entries), you may also want to use Excel’s Fixed Decimal Places feature so that Excel places a deci- mal point in all the numbers that you enter in the worksheet.
Book II Chapter 1
Building Worksheets