Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Quickly Updating Values.

Quickly Updating Values

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 15, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Many people use Excel to keep track of important information, such as price sheets or cost tables. This data is then used to help calculate proposals or to figure out how much should be charged to customers. It is not uncommon to need to update information in these tables on a periodic basis. For instance, your company may decide that it will increase all prices in the company by ten percent this year.

If you have rather large pricing tables, you may not know the best way to update the prices by the ten percent. Obviously you could make a secondary table and then base the information in that table on a formula, such as =B3 * 1.1. This is actually more work than is necessary, however. Excel provides a much quicker way to update values in a table by a uniform amount. Simply follow these steps:

  1. Select an empty cell, somewhere outside the range used by your pricing table.
  2. Enter the value 1.1 in the empty cell.
  3. With the cell selected, press Ctrl+C to copy its contents to the Clipboard.
  4. Select the entire pricing table. You should not select any headers or non-numeric information in the table.
  5. Choose the Paste Special option from the Edit menu. Excel displays the Paste Special dialog box. (See Figure 1.)
  6. Figure 1. The Paste Special dialog box.

  7. In the Operation area of the dialog box, make sure you select the Multiply option.
  8. Click on OK.
  9. Select the cell where you entered the value in step 2.
  10. Press the Delete key.

That's it! All the values in your pricing table now show a ten percent increase from their previous values.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2956) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Quickly Updating 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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Creating a Shape

Ever wanted to create a simple drawing in your worksheet? Excel has made this simple. This tip explains how Excel uses ...

Discover More

Freezing Top Rows and Bottom Rows

Freezing the top rows in a worksheet so that they are always visible is easy to do. Freezing the bottom rows is not so ...

Discover More

Adding the Set Print Area Tool

Spend a lot of time defining print areas in your workbooks? You might benefit by adding a Set Print Area tool to the ...

Discover More

Program Successfully in Excel! This guide will provide you with all the information you need to automate any task in Excel and save time and effort. Learn how to extend Excel's functionality with VBA to create solutions not possible with the standard features. Includes latest information for Excel 2024 and Microsoft 365. Check out Mastering Excel VBA Programming today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Noting When a Workbook was Changed

Do you need to know when a workbook was last changed? There are a couple of ways you can go about keeping track of the ...

Discover More

Creating New Windows

If you need to look at different parts of the same worksheet at the same time, the answer is to create windows for your ...

Discover More

Checking for a Value in a Cell

Need to figure out if a cell contains a number so that your formula makes sense? (Perhaps it would return an error if the ...

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 one more than 8?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon 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.