Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 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: Quickly Selecting Cells.

Quickly Selecting Cells

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 29, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


You already know that you can use the mouse to select a range of cells by holding down the left mouse button and dragging the mouse to make a selection. There is an even quicker way to select cells using the mouse, however. This is done in the following manner:

  1. Select the cell that marks one corner of the range of cells you want to select.
  2. Move the mouse pointer so it points to the cell at the opposite diagonal corner of the range you want selected.
  3. Hold down the Shift key as you click once on the left mouse button.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10676) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Quickly Selecting 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

Determining if a File Exists

Your macro may need to know if a particular file exists. This is easy to figure out using the Dir command, and even ...

Discover More

Opening a Backup File

If you have Word configured to save backup copies of your document, you may want to actually load one of those copies at ...

Discover More

Alerts About Approaching Due Dates

You may use Excel to track due dates for a variety of purposes. As a due date approaches, you may want that fact drawn to ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Copying from the Task Bar

When you select cells in a worksheet, there is a good chance that if you glance at the Task Bar, you'll see some ...

Discover More

Automatically Adding 20% to an Entry

When you are developing a worksheet for others to use, you may want to have entries in a particular cell (or cells) be ...

Discover More

Quickly Deleting Rows and Columns

Deleting rows or columns is easy when you use the shortcut described in this tip. Just select the rows or columns and ...

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 3 + 5?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


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.