Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. 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: Changing Multiple Cells at Once.

Changing Multiple Cells at Once

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 9, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365


1

David has several non-adjacent cells that each contains the same formula. He needs to change the formula in all the cells to something else. He knows he can change the formula in one of the cells and then copy the formula to the other cells, but he's wondering if there is a way to change the formula in all the cells at the same time, without the need to do the copy/paste operation.

If you want to retype the formula from scratch, Excel actually provides a shortcut to do this: Ctrl+Enter. All you need to do is create a selection set of the cells you want to edit. (Selection sets are created by clicking on a single cell then, as you hold down the Ctrl key, clicking on other cells you want included in the set.) Type the formula you want to appear in each cell in the set, then press Ctrl+Enter.

If you want to change an existing formula in the cells, simply create your selection set of those cells and then use Find and Replace to search for the formula you want to change. You can easily click on Replace All in the dialog box to change all the cells at once. (Remember—this approach will only work properly if the formulas in the cells are all exactly the same.)

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11924) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Changing Multiple Cells at Once.

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

Creating an Index Entry for a Range of Pages

Putting together an index for your documents can be challenging, but Word provides some great tools to make the task ...

Discover More

Phantom Counts

Two common worksheet functions used to count things are COUNT and COUNTA. Not understanding how these functions treat ...

Discover More

Adjusting How Quickly Your Keyboard Responds

Does your keyboard seem a bit sluggish or a bit too quick when you hold down keys? You can adjust how the keyboard ...

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)

Deleting Everything Up to a Character Sequence

Sometimes you have too much information in a cell and you need to "pare down" what is there to get to the info you really ...

Discover More

Deleting Everything Except Formulas

Need to get rid of everything in a worksheet except the formulas? It's easier to make this huge change than you think it is.

Discover More

Getting Rid of Non-Printing Characters Intelligently

Is your worksheet, imported from an external source, plagued by non-printing characters that show up like small boxes ...

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 three less than 3?

2023-05-19 14:00:14

Amjad Ali

Here is also with new improve tools i found for proper bookkeeping, accounting purposes, which include for invoicing, budget evaluation, economic analysis, education of profits statement, balance sheet and plenty easier and it has much less time eating for all monetary analysis for current and destiny year as well. Which downloadable at https://www.excel-accounting-budget-analysis.com


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.