Excel Cell

Cell is an Object of Excel Sheet to enter information. It represents with Column Name followed by Row Number. The address of the First Cell in the Excel Sheet is A1 (A is the First Column and 1 is the first Row in Excel sheet). The format of an Excel spread sheet looks like a Table and the intersection of Rows and Columns formats blocks (boxes), each of these small blocks are called Cells in Excel.

How to enter data in a Cell

You can select any Cell in the Excel and press F2 function key to make the Cell editable. Then enter the data using your keyboard in the Cell. You can also double click on a Cell to make it to data entry mode.

What kind of information we can enter in a Cell

We can enter text, numbers, dates, formulas, images, chars, icons and special characters in Excel Cells. We can perform mathematical and logical operations based on our requirements. We can also format the Cell with font styles, colors, number formats,etc.

Type of Data	Approach to Enter in Excel
Enter Date in excel	Use Shortcut key CTRL+ ; (Control and Semicolon) to enter date in Excel.
Enter formula in excel	Double Click on any Cell and start with = and enter your formula expression.
Enter time in excel	You can use TIMEVALUE(time_text) function to accept the Time. Or you can formate the cell into required time format “h:mm:ss AM/PM”, and enter time value in the cell.
Enter today’s date in excel	You can use Ctrl+ ; Shortcut key to enter todats Date in Excel.
Enter a checkmark in excel	You can use Char(252) function or Alt+0252 to enter Check Box Character and Change Font of the Cell to Wingdings.
Enter a drop down list in excel	Goto Data tab in the Ribbon menu and Clcik on the Data Validation Command to enter Drop down List.
Enter 20 digit number in excel	Start with ‘ (apostrophe) and enter the number or format the cell as Text, the number will save as string.
Enter a checkbox in excel	Use alt code 0252 and format font to Wingdings. Alternatively, use Symbol command in Insert menu.

Merge Split (Un Merge) Cells

We have following options and tools in the Excel to merge and unmerge (split) the cells in Excel. You use it based on your requirement.

How to Merge Cells in Excel ?

Follow the below steps to merge the Cells in Excel:

Select the required range of cells in the sheet
Go to Home tab in the Ribbon Menu
Press the ‘Merge Cells‘ Command to merge the Cells.

How to Split Merged Cells in Excel?

Follow the below steps to split the merged Cells in Excel:

Select the merged cell in the sheet
Go to Home tab in the Ribbon Menu
Press the ‘Merge Cells‘ Command to split the cells.

How to Merge Data in Two or More Cells in Excel?

Follow the below steps to merge the data in multiple Cells in Excel:

You can use the Concatenate Formula to Merge the Cells. For example, =Concatenate(A1,B1)
You can use concatenate operator & to merge the cell data. For example, =A1&B1

How to Change Excel Cell Size?

You can follow the one of the method to increase the size of the cell in Excel.

By increasing the width of the column
Increase the height of the Row
Increase the font size to make the cell bigger
merge multiple Cells to make one large size cell

How to Split Data in a Cell in Excel?

Follow the below steps to split the data in a Cell into multiple Cells and Columns:

Select the required Cell or Column to Split
Go to Data tab in the Excel Ribbon menu
Click on the ‘Text to Column’ command in the Data tools group
Choose and Delimited character or fixed with option to split the data.

How to Extract the Text from Excel Cell?

Follow the below steps to split the data in a Cell into multiple Cells and Columns:

Select the required Cell or Column to Split
Go to Data tab in the Excel Ribbon menu
Click on the ‘Text to Column’ command in the Data tools group
Choose and Delimited character or fixed with option to split the data.

Lock and Unlock Cells in Excel

We need to protect our data in Excel to hide it from others users. We can use built in Excel tools to lock and unlock the Cells.

How to Lock Excel Cells?

You can lock entire sheet or specific range of cells in the Excel. Follow the below steps to lock the required Cells in the Excel.

Select the required range of cells to lock (By default Excel cells are locked)
Then Go to Review Tab in the Excel Ribbon menu
Click on the ‘Protect Sheet’ command available in the Protect Group.
Choose the Required things to restrict and enter the password to protect
And confirm it and press OK to lock it.

How to Un Lock Excel Cells?

Follow the below steps to unlock the cells in Excel. Make sure you have the password to unlock the sheet.

Go to Review Tab in the Excel Ribbon menu
Click on the ‘Unprotect Sheet’ command available in the Protect Group.
Enter the password to un lock the sheet
Select the required range of cells to un lock.
Right Click on it and press Format Cells command
Un select the Locked check mark in the Protection Tab
Now you can reset the password (if required)

Removing Text from Cells

You can select the required cells to remove the text, press delete key on your keyboard. Excel stores verity of data in Cells, you can follow the below methods to remove the required data from Cells.

Data	Approach to remove
Text	Click Delete Button or Press the Clear Contents command from Editing Tools in Home Tab.
Format	Press Clear Formats command from Editiong tools to delete only Formats of the Cells.
Comments	Press Clear Comments command from Editiong tools to delete only Comments in the Cells.
Delete Everything	Press Clear All command from Editiong tools to delete everything in Cells.

How to Remove Specific Text From Excel Cell

You can follow the one the following methods to remove specific text from Excel Cells.

One Cell: You can double click on the cell and select the required text and press delete button from your keyboard.
Multiple Cells or Columns: You can select entire range of cells and use find and Replace Dialog (Ctrl+H) to remove the specific text (Find What:= your text, Leave blank in the Replace with: text box)
Part Of Text Criteria: You can use formulas (Mid, Find,Len,Trim) to remove the text based on specific criteria or to Remove Part Of Text From Excel Cell.

How to New Line In Excel Cell

Press Alt+Enter to add new line in Excel. You can use Char(10) with Excel Formula.

Fill Color in Excel Cells

You can fill single or multiple color to set the background colors of the Excel Cells. You fill Solid color or Gradients Color.

Standard Colors: You can select any cell and go to the Home tab and click on the fill color control (color bucket icon) to set the standard colors in Excel.
Theme Colors: You can use the one of the colors from Excel Theme Styles, All the cells will change automatically when you change color theme.
Gradient Colors: You can set Multiple color shading within a single cell using Gradient Effects in Excel. Click on the Format Cells command from the right click menu. And go to Fill Tab and press the Fill effects to set the Cells gradient colors. You can use this option to Split a cell in excel with two or three colors

Cell in Excel Object Model

Cell is a child object of Worksheet. Worksheet is a collection of all cells in the worksheet. Portion of the spreadsheet (One or group of Cells) is called Range in Excel. Here is the Object Model of Excel Cell.

How to Refer a Cell

We use Column Name followed by Row Number to refer a Cell in Excel. For example, C5 is the intersection area of Column C and Row 5. Here C5 is called the address of the Cell. There are two types of methods we can use to refer a Cell.

Relative Reference: The address of the Cell will change relatively while performing the Excel Operations. It is the default reference type and we can refer as A1 to refer the first cell of a sheet.
Absolute Reference: The address of the Cell will be fixed and will not change while performing Excel Operations like Copying, Dragging and Auto filling the Cells. We can put $ symbol to make the Row or Column Absolute. For Example, $C$5 is the absolute reference of the cell A5.

We refer the cells to use the data of any cell in other cells and objects. We can use Relative reference, Absolute reference or both combined based on our requirement.

For Example:

=$D$5: will lock both Column and Row, Both Column and Rows are Absolute.

=$D5: will lock Column and will not lock the Row, Column is Absolute and Row is Relative.

=D$5: will lock Row and will not lock the Column, Row is Absolute and Column is Relative.

= D5: Both Column and Rows are Relative.

What is an Active Cell?

A Cell which is currently selected in the Active Sheet of the Active Window is called Active Cell. ActiveCell is an Object of the Worksheet Object , we can use ActiveCell to deal with the currently selected cell of the active worksheet.