Paste values

By Neil Shorney, Director, Naturally Sales Ltd.

A useful data manipulation technique in Excel is "Paste Values". Copying formula results and pasting only the values elsewhere allows for two things:

  1. to move the results around without them changing
  2. to preserve the results at a moment in time before then changing data

The method differs between versions of Excel. In 2003 and 2007, you need to right-click, choose "Paste Special", select "Values" and click "OK". In Excel 2010 the process is much smoother – simply right-click, then click the button with "123" written on it.

For more about data manipulation, see the Intermediate Microsoft Excel course.