Copy / Pase Data Horizontally or Vertically in Excel

Just as with everything in Excel, there is always a way to do certain things in several ways. This reflects complicated actions, but the easier ones are no exception.

The example below shows how to copy and paste the data in Excel horizontally and vertically.

Copying and Pasting Data Horizontally and Vertically

For our example, we will use the list of NBA players:

If we want to copy and paste our data vertically, since they are already vertical, all we need to do is select it, right-click on it and chose Copy, or click CTRL + C:

To paste the data, we can position ourselves on the destination cell, and click CTRL + P or right-click in the cell and choose any of the pasting options:

One of these options can also help us paste our data horizontally. The first three pasting options that we can see are Paste, Paste as Values, and Paste Formulas. The fourth option is the one we need to use if we want to paste our data horizontally- TRANSPOSE:

This will paste our data horizontally. If our data were lined up horizontally, we would use the same pasting option to get the data stored vertically.

We could have also used a drag-and-drop option, by selecting our range, then placing the cursor on the edge of the range chosen till the moment it turns into a four-sided arrow.

Then we need to press and hold the CTRL key on the keyboard and click and drag our selected range to the desired destination. For the final step, we will release the mouse button and the CTRL key. We will have our data copied and pasted.

Tomasz Decker is an Excel specialist, skilled in data analysis and financial modeling.