Q. Every now and then I have to transpose a range of cells in a spreadsheet—similar to switching the X and Y axes. In other words, if January, February and March run across the top of the spreadsheet and the corresponding figures are in rows under the months, I need to transpose the months to the rows column and the figures across the columns. That’s a tedious job to do manually. Is there a shortcut?
A. Yes, there is a wonderful shortcut—and it’s conveniently built into the Copy command (Ctrl+C). Let’s say your spreadsheet looks like this:
Highlight all the cells you want transposed and copy—from A1 to D3—with Ctrl+C. Place your cursor where you want the transposed cells to go and right-click, bringing up the screen at left.
 Then click on Paste Special , which brings up the screen at right. |
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Now place a check in the Transpose box at the bottom of the screen. When you click on OK , the cells will look like this.
