Entering and editing cells

What it does

Everything about working with the cells of an open spreadsheet: typing, a calendar for dates, autofill, moving blocks, copying and pasting from Google Sheets, Tencent Docs and Excel, undo, search and replace, the right-click menu, the summary of the selection, and keyboard shortcuts.

How to use it

1. Typing. Select a cell and start typing: the old content is replaced. F2 or a double-click edits what is already there. Enter saves and moves down, Tab moves right; with Shift, in the opposite direction. Escape cancels the input. A new line inside a cell is Alt+Enter, Shift+Enter or Ctrl/⌘+Enter. A formula starts with the “=” sign. With an apostrophe “’” at the start, the text is kept as it is, and leading zeros are kept. “15%” becomes a percentage.
2. Hints. While you type text, up to 6 values that already exist in this column and start the same way appear under the field; the more frequent ones are higher. ↑ and ↓ select, Tab - accept inserts the value and moves right, and Enter saves what you have typed.
3. Calendar. In a cell with a date format, a calendar opens under the field, with Previous month, Next month and Today. A click on a day sets the date and saves the cell; the time in the cell stays as it was.
4. Autofill. Drag the small square in the bottom right corner of the selection (Autocomplete) down, up, right or left. Two or more numbers with the same step continue the series: 1, 2 → 3, 4. Text with a number at the end increases the number: “Позиция 1” → “Позиция 2”, and leading zeros are kept. References in formulas shift. Everything else repeats in a cycle. Merged cells and dropdown lists repeat together with the block. Escape during the drag cancels it. From the keyboard: Tab to the handle, arrows to set the area, and Enter applies it. A screen reader announces the area (Autofill to …), the result (Filled: …) and the cancellation (Autofill cancelled). Ctrl/⌘+D fills the selection down from its first row.
5. Moving. Take the edge of the selection frame and drag the block to a new place; Escape cancels. The block moves together with its formatting and borders: no frame lines remain in the old place. A row or column selected entirely is moved by its header. On a scrolled sheet with frozen rows or columns, the block lands in the cell under which the pointer is released.
6. Copying and pasting: Ctrl/⌘+C, Ctrl/⌘+X, Ctrl/⌘+V. Ctrl/⌘+Shift+V pastes values only. A copy from this same spreadsheet carries formulas with shifted references, formatting, merged cells and lists. A moving dashed frame shows what is in the clipboard, including in the frozen rows; Escape removes it. A picture from the clipboard is placed in the cell.
   • Google Sheets: with Ctrl/⌘+V, formulas, dropdown lists, formatting, column widths and row heights carry over.
   • Tencent Docs: formulas and formatting carry over.
   • Excel: fill, font, borders, number formats and formulas carry over.
   • Plain text is split into columns by tabs; if there are no tabs, by “;”.
   • If the selection is larger than the copied piece and a multiple of it, the piece is repeated over the whole selection. A single cell with a formula fills the whole selected column in this way.
   • If the pasted data does not fit, the sheet adds rows and columns by itself.
   • Cut (Ctrl/⌘+X, or the menu item) erases nothing at once: the block stays in place under the moving frame. Paste moves it whole, with values, formulas, formatting, borders, merged cells and validation, and it can be undone in one step. You can paste on another sheet of this workbook: the block appears there, and the place it was cut from is cleared. Escape cancels a cut. If you have copied something else after the cut, the paste is an ordinary one. Pasting the same thing again is an ordinary copy.
7. Special insert in the right-click menu: Values only, Formats only, Formulas only, Data validation only, Conditional formatting only, Transpose, Everything except borders. For how borders behave in a paste and in a transpose, see Cell borders.
8. Undo. The Undo and Redo buttons on the toolbar, Ctrl/⌘+Z, Ctrl/⌘+Shift+Z or Ctrl/⌘+Y. Each drag, paste or move is undone in one step.
9. Search: Ctrl/⌘+F. The line Find on sheet opens with the counter N of M. Each match is filled with translucent green over the whole cell, together with the text, and outlined with a thick green frame outside the cell. The current result stands out more: its fill is denser, and its frame is double — dark on the outside and white under it (the other way round in the dark theme), with a shadow, lying over the neighbouring cells. Enter goes to the next match, Shift+Enter to the previous one. The ⋮ button (Replace) or Ctrl/⌘+H expands the field Replace with and the checkboxes Match case, Match full content, Regular expressions and Search in formulas. Actions: Replace, Replace all, Done. The × button, Close search, and Escape from any field or button of the panel close the search. The search looks for text as it is shown on screen: in the English interface, a date with a month name is found by “January”, and a logical value by “TRUE”. If the search is already open, Ctrl/⌘+F from the spreadsheet again puts the cursor in Find on sheet and selects the query, so you can type or paste a new one at once. Ctrl/⌘+H does the same and also expands the replacement.
10. The right-click menu on a cell: Cut, Copy, Paste, Paste values only, Special insert, Ask an agent, Rows and columns, Clear contents, Text color, Fill, Comment…, Note…, Link…, Borders and More cell actions.

• Rows and columns expands Insert rows above or below, Delete rows, Row height, Insert columns on the left or right, Remove columns, and Column width.
• More cell actions expands Merge cells (or Unmerge cells), Conditional formatting…, Protect range… (only where protection is available: a guest via a link, a spreadsheet of another organization, a summary sheet, and a version view have no such item), and, if the cell has validation, Remove data validation.
• A row header has no submenu: its commands are shown directly in the menu, with Freeze up to row N (up to the row on whose header the menu is open), Unfreeze rows, Group rows, Ungroup rows, and the cell actions. There are no column items there. A column header has the same, for columns, without the row items.
• The number in brackets shows how many rows or columns the command will affect.

11. The summary of the selection is on the right of the bottom bar: Sum, Average, Count.
12. The address field to the left of the formula bar shows the address of the selection, or the name of the sheet’s named range if the selection exactly matches it. Type an address (B3, A1:C10, A:A) or a range name, and press Enter: that area is selected. If there is no such address or name, the field returns to its previous value. Escape also returns the previous value. The arrow next to it is the Named ranges list: the range names of the sheet with their addresses. Choosing one selects its area. The last item, Named ranges…, opens the names panel. For details, see Formulas and functions.
13. The list of all shortcuts opens with the ? button (Keyboard shortcuts) in the bottom bar, or with Ctrl/⌘+/. The window is closed with Close, with Escape, or by a click on the dimming. On a phone it is a sheet: swipe its handle down. The sample in the search field is Bold: you can search by the name of an action and by keys. The main shortcuts (on a Mac, ⌘ instead of Ctrl and ⌥ instead of Alt):

Action	Keys
Edit a cell / note	F2 / Shift+F2
Clear values	Delete, Backspace
Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough	Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, Ctrl+U, Alt+Shift+5
Link / comment	Ctrl+K / Ctrl+Alt+M
All borders / remove borders	Alt+Shift+7 / Alt+Shift+6
Insert / delete rows	Ctrl+= / Ctrl+- (with Shift, columns)
Group / ungroup	Alt+Shift+→ / Alt+Shift+←
Select all / column / row	Ctrl+A / Ctrl+Space / Shift+Space
To the edge of the data / select to the edge	Ctrl+arrow / Ctrl+Shift+arrow
Open the cell’s list	Alt+↓
Print	Ctrl+P

Behaviour and limits

• A cell can hold up to 5 000 characters of text. A formula can be up to 8 192 characters, a link up to 2 048 characters, and a number format code up to 255 characters. When pasting, long text is cut, and a formula that is too long is discarded. A message appears in both cases.
• A sheet holds up to 99 999 rows, 999 columns and 4 000 000 filled cells. A piece from the clipboard is repeated only if the selection is no more than 200 000 cells.
• Formulas and dropdown lists from Google carry over only with Ctrl/⌘+V: the browser does not pass them through the menu item.
• Row height is from 20 to 320 px, and column width is from 40 to 640 px. You can freeze up to 10 rows and 10 columns, and groups can nest up to 8 levels. When text wrapping is turned on, row heights are adjusted if no more than 2 000 rows are selected.
• You can undo the last 100 actions, and only in this tab. After Accept server version, the undo history is cleared.
• The autofill handle appears only if the selection contains data.
• The mouse wheel scrolls the sheet smoothly, and a trackpad scrolls at once. Shift with the wheel scrolls sideways, and Ctrl/⌘ with the wheel changes the browser zoom. Inside an input field or a list, the wheel scrolls them while they have room to scroll, and only then the sheet.
• Search and replace work only on the current sheet.
• A repeated Ctrl/⌘+F does not collapse an open replacement. Inside the search panel, Ctrl/⌘+F and Ctrl/⌘+H do not open the browser’s own page search: they select the query, and Ctrl/⌘+H in a narrow line expands the replacement. In view mode, Ctrl/⌘+H only selects the query.
• The highlighting and the current result stay when you click other cells, change focus, or scroll. Selecting a cell does not cancel the search. Closing the search clears all its marks. An empty query and no matches also remove the highlighting. The fill of the document does not change. On a narrow screen the search and replace buttons wrap, and the × button stays available.
• Both arrows work even with one match: each press selects the found cell again and brings it back into the visible area, even if you have moved to another part of the sheet before.
• In the dark theme, the fill is less dense, so the text stays contrasting. In both themes, the current result stands out more than the others, and has a double frame. Frames lie outside the cell and do not cover its content. For a result right under the frozen rows, the top of the frame is visible at the bottom edge of the frozen part. For the row and column headers (column A, row 1, the first visible one after scrolling), the side of the frame lies inside the cell, so that the headers do not cover it.
• After Cut, Paste values only (Ctrl/⌘+Shift+V) and the modes of Special insert work as a copy: the original place is not cleared.
• When a cut block is moved to another sheet, the data validation and conditional formatting rules stay on the original sheet, and formulas that referred to the cut cells are not redirected. Within a sheet, everything moves and the references are redirected.
• When a spreadsheet is opened for viewing, you cannot edit, paste, drag the handle or move blocks; the right-click menu does not open, and the search has no replace.
• The owner of a link can turn off copying. Then Copying not available appears.
• Website and email addresses typed in become links. This can be turned off in Appearance → Turn website and email addresses into links when typing.

Errors and recovery

What you see on the screen	Why	What to do
A message with the validation condition; the value was not saved	The value does not pass the data validation of the cell	Enter an allowed value, or choose it from the list
Cell occupied by spill from A1	The cell is filled by a formula from another cell	Edit the formula in the cell indicated
Could not apply the value	The value does not suit the sheet, for example text longer than 5 000 characters	Shorten the value
The range exceeds the sheet limit	The paste goes beyond 99 999 rows or 999 columns	Select a cell further to the left or higher
The clipboard has N filled cells; the sheet limit is 4 000 000…	Too much was copied	Copy part of the spreadsheet
N cells pasted; … cut to the text length…	Some data is longer than the cell limits	Check the cells indicated
The selection is larger than 200 000 cells — pasted once…	The selection is too big to be repeated	Select a smaller range
Formulas and dropdown lists are not carried over from the menu…	A paste from Google through the menu	Repeat with Ctrl/⌘+V
The spreadsheet is too big to paste with formatting…	A very large piece	The data was pasted as values. Paste large Google sheets with Ctrl/⌘+V
Google Sheets format not recognised…	The Google clipboard has an unknown form	Copy again from Google
The copied range has no data validation (or conditional formatting)	There is nothing to carry over with the special insert	Choose another paste mode
Pasting data…	A large paste is in progress	Wait until it finishes
Could not paste the range…	The data does not suit the spreadsheet	Copy a smaller or different piece
Unmerge cells at the freeze boundary, No more than eight levels of nesting	The freeze cuts a merge, or there are too many groups	Unmerge the cells, or remove an extra level
Copying not available	The owner has turned off copying by link	Ask for another kind of access