Microsoft Excel Help: How do I apply an equation to more than one cell?

Question

Hello all. :)

I haven't used Excel for awhile, but I remember that is possible to simply highlight a column and have a function (in my case, LOG 10) apply itself to the entire area. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do it and I can't find the topic under Excel's help menu.

If anyone could help me out and tell me how to do this I will be very grateful. I have about 180 values to convert and graph and this would be a huge help! Thank you! :)

Oh, and when I do the format single cell/drag the bottom right corner over other cells trick, I keep getting a "#NUM!" error. Excel isn't any help at telling me what I did wrong, and checking the math, I can't see anything I did wrong.

Again, thank you so much for your help guys! :)

Answer 1

Here's an easy way: once you have the cell formatted the way you want, grab the small square box at the cell's lower right corner and drag it to the cells your want.

The formulas in the new cells will be relative to their position. If you want to reference a single fixed cell, use a $ sign, like $B$1.

Answer 2

On the Edit menu, click Copy.
Select the cell(s) you want to copy to.
To copy the formula and any formatting, on the Edit menu, click Paste.
To copy the formula only, on the Edit menu, click Paste Special, and then click Formulas.

You probably need to use an absolute cell reference in the formula, such as $A$1, like Jim mentions above