Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. 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: Filling a Range of Cells with Values.

Filling a Range of Cells with Values

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated July 8, 2020)

1

Jonathan is creating a macro and needs to fill a range of cells with values. For instance, if he needs to fill the range A1:C1, it currently takes three statements to fill that range:

Range("A1") = "Test1"
Range("B1") = "Test2"
Range("C1") = "Test3"

He wonders if there is a way to fill them in a single statement, similar to the following:

Range("A1:C1") = ("Test1","Test2","Test3")

Jonathan's desired syntax is close, but it won't work. Here's how it will work:

Range("A1:C1") = Array("Test1","Test2","Test3")

Note the use of the Array statement, which tells VBA that what follows should be considered a sequence of values to be used in the sequence of cells at the left of the operator. Interestingly enough, you could stuff values into variables and also use the Array statement, as shown here:

sOne = "Apples"
sTwo = "Oranges"
sThree = "Artichokes"
Range("A1:C1") = Array(sOne, sTwo, sThree)

You can also work with straight variables, if you prefer:

Dim sMyStrings(2) As String
sMyStrings(0) = "Apples"
sMyStrings(1) = "Oranges"
sMyStrings(2) = "Artichokes"
Range("A1:C1") = sMyStrings

The above code could also be rewritten, as follows:

Dim sMyStrings(2) As String
sMyStrings = Array("Apples", "Oranges", "Artichokes")
Range("A1:C1") = sMyStrings

Finally, if you wanted to have the values placed into a single column rather than in a row, you would need to use the Transpose function, in this manner:

Range("A1:A3") = Application.Transpose(Array("Test1","Test2","Test3"))

Note:

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ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11702) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Filling a Range of Cells with Values.

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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What is five more than 8?

2017-11-29 11:47:01

Jason

Thanks Allen!

I usually use multidimensional arrays with an array variable in which defining the range then setting it equal to the array works just fine. In my work today, I was using a single value and was thinking it would fill the column I defined (probably because the watch window puts it in a column). Instead it placed the first value in the array in each cell of the column. Your last method is the one I needed to tell the values to transpose.

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