Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Accepting Only a Single Digit.

Accepting Only a Single Digit

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 10, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021


4

Rich wonders how he can configure Excel so that when he enters a single digit it will automatically advance to the next cell. He wants to eliminate hitting Enter or Tab to get to the next cell. The value of the entry for a range of cells will always be a single positive digit.

This cannot be done with any native configuration setting in Excel. Instead, you will need to create a macro that will handle the entry for you. A natural choice for the macro is to use the Change event for the worksheet, so that any time a value is entered into a cell, the entry is "pulled apart" and stuffed in cells in the row.

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
    If IsNumeric(Target.Value) Then
        CRow = Target.Row
        CColumn = Target.Column - 1
        Entry = Target.Value
        For i = 1 To Len(Entry)
            Cells(CRow, CColumn + i).Value = Mid(Entry, i, 1)
        Next
    End If
End Sub

This macro checks, first, to see if what was entered is numeric. If it is, then the digits are extracted from the value and placed in consecutive cells in the row.

The drawback to such a macro, of course, is that you still need to press Enter to trigger the event. If you want to get away from pressing Enter entirely, then you will need to rely upon a different approach. This technique relies upon the OnKey function to assign macros to specific keystrokes. Place the following code into a standard macro module.

Sub Assigns()
    Dim i As Variant
    With Application
        For i = 0 To 9
            .OnKey i, "dig" & i
        Next
    End With
End Sub
Sub ClearAssigns()
    Dim i As Variant
    With Application
        For i = 0 To 9
            .OnKey i
        Next
    End With
End Sub
Sub dig0()
    ActiveCell.Value = 0
    ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
End Sub
Sub dig1()
    ActiveCell.Value = 1
    ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
End Sub
Sub dig2()
    ActiveCell.Value = 2
    ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
End Sub
Sub dig3()
    ActiveCell.Value = 3
    ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
End Sub
Sub dig4()
    ActiveCell.Value = 4
    ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
End Sub
Sub dig5()
    ActiveCell.Value = 5
    ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
End Sub
Sub dig6()
    ActiveCell.Value = 6
    ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
End Sub
Sub dig7()
    ActiveCell.Value = 7
    ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
End Sub
Sub dig8()
    ActiveCell.Value = 8
    ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
End Sub
Sub dig9()
    ActiveCell.Value = 9
    ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
End Sub

To start the macro, run the Assigns macro. Thereafter, every time a digit is typed the digit is stuffed into the current cell and the next cell to the right selected. If you type in text, then nothing happens. (Of course, if you try to enter a mixed value, such as B2B, then when you press "2" that is what will end up in the cell.) When you are done with this type of data entry, run the ClearAssigns macro to finish up.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the ExcelTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (12276) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Accepting Only a Single Digit.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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Comments

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What is 2 + 8?

2023-06-12 10:03:36

J. Woolley

If you really want to use the single digit technique described in the Tip and implemented in my earliest comment below, perhaps there would be less trouble if you restrict it to the numeric keypad in combination with the Ctrl key, for example. In this case, modify the Assigns macro in my first comment as follows:

Sub Assigns()
Dim i As Integer, proc As String, key As String
For i = 0 To 9
proc = "'Dig(" & i & ")'" 'apostrophes are necessary
key = "^{" & (96 + i) & "}" 'Ctrl+numeral on numeric keypad
Application.OnKey key, proc
Next i
End Sub

Then make a similar change to the ClearAssigns macro. Notice the caret (^) represents the Ctrl key.


2023-06-11 18:04:06

J. Woolley

@Willy Vanhaelen
In my previous comment I said, "Also, the Tip's Assigns macro does not work as expected because OnKey expects text parameters." Now I believe the original macro's problem can be resolved by replacing this statement
.OnKey i, "dig" & i
with the following statement
.OnKey i, "'dig" & i & "'"
Although not mentioned in Microsoft's document, it is important to surround the OnKey procedure with apostrophes.


2023-06-11 15:49:04

J. Woolley

The Tip's ten dig# macros have a common issue: To select the "next cell to the right" (instead of down), replace this statement
    ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
with the following statement
    ActiveCell.Offset(0, 1).Select
Also, the Tip's Assigns macro does not work as expected because OnKey expects text parameters. Finally, the ten OnKey events addressed by the Tip's Assigns and ClearAssigns macros only apply to numerals above the alpha keys on the keyboard, not to numerals on the numeric keypad.
Here's an improved version of the Tip's macros with 12 procedures replaced by 3 servicing 20 OnKey events (counting the numeric keypad):

Sub Assigns()
    Dim i As Integer, proc As String, key As String
    For i = 0 To 9
        proc = "'Dig(" & i & ")'" 'apostrophes are necessary
        key = i 'numeral above alpha keys
        Application.OnKey key, proc
        key = "{" & (96 + i) & "}" 'numeral on numeric keypad
        Application.OnKey key, proc
    Next i
End Sub

Sub ClearAssigns()
    Dim i As Integer, key As String
    For i = 0 To 9
        key = i 'numeral above alpha keys
        Application.OnKey key
        key = "{" & (96 + i) & "}" 'numeral on numeric keypad
        Application.OnKey key
    Next
End Sub

Sub Dig(arg As Byte)
    ActiveCell.Value = arg
    ActiveCell.Offset(0, 1).Select
End Sub

Although not mentioned in Microsoft's document, the OnKey procedure should be surrounded by apostrophes for reliable results.


2023-06-11 12:25:10

Willy Vanhaelen

I have an application where I could use the OnKeys macros. So I tested the macros of this tip but they don't do the job. I get the following error:
(see Figure 1 below)
So I started to experiment because at first sight there is nothing wrong with the macros and normally they should work. Finally I found the reason of the error but I can't explain it. Examining the "View Macros box" (Alt+F8) revealed that only the macro dig0 can be executed. The dig1 till dig9 macros are greyed out (disabled). After some trials I got it finally to work by changing the line of code in the For Next loop in the Assigns macro to:
.OnKey i, "Module1.dig" & i
and this works.

So only the first run of the For Next loop is executed and the 9 other runs are ignored. WEIRD !!!

I use Windows 10 and Excel 2019 but I tested it on my laptop with Windows 7 and Excel 2007 with the same result. So it seems to be general except perhaps in versions of Excel prior to 2007. Obviously these macros were not tested again before the tip was published in this week's (10 jun) Excel Tips (ribbon) :-(

Figure 1. 


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