Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007 and 2010. 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: Quickly Transposing Cells.

Quickly Transposing Cells

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 21, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 2007 and 2010


2

You probably know the feeling—you start creating a worksheet, get a good way into it, and realize that you should have made your columns into rows and your rows into columns. In other words, you want to turn your data by 90 degrees and continue working with the sheet.

Fortunately, Excel provides an easy way to accomplish this very task. In Excel's terminology, this process is known as transposing data. To transpose your data, follow these steps:

  1. Select the range of cells you want to transpose.
  2. Press Ctrl+C to copy the data from the worksheet and place it in the Clipboard.
  3. Select the cell that will be at the top-left corner of your newly transposed data.
  4. Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
  5. Click the down-arrow under the Paste tool and then choose Transpose. Your data appears at the point you specified in step 3, but it is transposed.

Notice that in step 2 you must use the copy command (Ctrl+C) rather than the cut command (Ctrl+X). This is because you can't choose Paste Special from the Edit menu when you cut information. For this reason, you may want to copy information from one worksheet (steps 1 and 2) and paste it into another (steps 3 through 5). You can play with this method of pasting and select the method that is best for you.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6248) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007 and 2010. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Quickly Transposing Cells.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Turning Off Document Protection

If you protect your document using the tools that Word provides, at some time you may need to turn off that protection. ...

Discover More

Getting Rid of 8-Bit ASCII Characters

When working with data created outside of Excel, you may need to check that data to make sure it contains no unwanted ...

Discover More

Using the Highlighter

Need to draw attention to some text? Consider using the Highlight tool, which functions just like the highlighter pens ...

Discover More

Save Time and Supercharge Excel! Automate virtually any routine task and save yourself hours, days, maybe even weeks. Then, learn how to make Excel do things you thought were simply impossible! Mastering advanced Excel macros has never been easier. Check out Excel 2010 VBA and Macros today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Creating a Shortcut for Pasting Values

Excel's Paste Special command is used quite a bit. If you want to create some shortcuts for the command, here's some ways ...

Discover More

Quickly Updating Values

If you need to update a bunch of values in a worksheet by a standard amount, you can use the Paste Special feature of ...

Discover More

Dividing Values

When working with large numbers, you may need a way to quickly divide a range of those numbers by a specific value. ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 8 + 7?

2016-12-04 22:30:48

David

I knew that, but I went a long time before I discovered the transpose function which does the same thing but means if you use the same data in rows in one place and columns in another you only have to update the data in one place.

What I sometimes find myself wanting to do is present the transposed data in the reverse order. Is there a way to do that easily?


2016-05-16 19:24:03

Thomson

If you will need to transpose similar data a lot (e.g. Daily/Weekly/Monthly report) , you can setup a PowerQuery for this.

Just load it into Power Query -> Transform -> Transpose.

The Pro is you can just refresh the queue if data always located in same location.




This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.