Duplicate Data In Worksheets
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Q. Some of my Excel projects require me to input the same data on several worksheets. As you can imagine, it’s a time-consuming task. Since you’ve suggested so many handy shortcuts for other jobs, I wonder if you have one for this task?
A. You’re in luck. There’s a speedy way to enter data on multiple worksheets simultaneously. The trick is to group the worksheets in which you want the data entered. In fact, by grouping worksheets, you can also simultaneously enter both formatting and formulas—three solutions for the price of one.
To do this, you first have to understand the grouping function. You can group two or more consecutive worksheets (for example, January, February, March) or two or more nonconsecutive worksheets (January, March, 2001).
Let’s do the consecutive sheets first. Click on the tab of the first worksheet, and while holding down the Shift key, click on the tab of the last sheet in the group. That will group all the sheets between the first and last sheet tab.
To group nonconsecutive sheets (such as January, February, April), click on the tab of the first worksheet. This time, hold down the Ctrl button and click on any of the sheets you want included in the group. The worksheets you select will appear in white, as shown below.
Any data, formula or formatting you enter or apply in one worksheet will appear simultaneously in the other grouped worksheets.
To remove the grouping function, click any tab not in the group or right-click on any tab in the group and select Ungroup Sheets from the shortcut menu.
