Inserting a Column

For a few days we have been keying in our weight, one day at a time, and we would like to label each weight value with a date.

Two dates, actually.

We would like to see the date to the left of each cell, and we would also like to see the day-of-the-week to the left of the cell.

Your spreadsheet looks like this. We want to insert two columns to the left of the data column.

Use Ctrl-Home to go to the top-left cell, known to amateurs as "The cell ay-one", although I urge you not to call it that.

From the menu system choose Insert, Columns (Alt-I, C) and a fresh empty column appears to the left of your data column.

Your data column has been shunted one column to the right.

Try it again - Alt-I,C - and now you have two empty columns to the left of your data column

In the top-left cell, type the date you started recording your weight.

I am doing this with you, and I started recording my weight on January 27th 2010, so I type in (without the quotes) "27 Jan 2010" and tap the Enter key.

Excel has formatted the date in its own way. Later on we will learn how to change that.

You might think that you need to key in a whole lot of dates, but that would be BORING AND REPETITIVE, and computers are good at doing boring and repetitive tasks (in fact, that's all that they ARE good at!), so we will use Excel to do our data entry for us.

In the next cell down, carefully tap the equals-sign key (just to the right of the row of digits on your keyboard), then tap the up-arrow key (just once), then tap the plus key (Shift-Equals) and then tap the digit "1".

At this stage your screen will look just like mine above, but we are not done yet.

To complete the formula, tap the Enter key.

TaDa!

Beats keying in dates, eh?

You can read the little formula any way you like. I think of it as an instruction to Excel "Take the value of the cell immediately above me, and add 1 to it". One more day.

You might think that you need to key in this formula again and again, until you have a date formula to the left of each data cell, but that would be BORING AND REPETITIVE, and computers are good at doing boring and repetitive tasks (in fact, that's all that they ARE good at!), so we will use Excel to do our data entry for us.

Note, in the image above, that the selected cell has a small solid black lozenge in the cell's lower-right corner.

Use your mouse to click on the formula cell you created, then click-and-drag the black lozenge straight downwards until you are on the same row as the last data cell you've keyed in.

When you let go of the mouse, the formula in the second cell will have been propagated to the remaining cells. (Excel calls this "Fill Down")

Beats keying in formulae, eh?

CGreaves@ChrisGreaves.com

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