How to Drag Sum Formulas From Cell to Cell in Microsoft Excel 2003

Lots of people use spreadsheet software to keep track of their daily budgets. One of the most useful aspects of the newer versions of this software is that they allow you to easily manipulate many of the previously tedious to enter formulas. This is accomplished by allowing user to simply drag sum formulas, and other formulas, into new groups of cells simply by using their mouse.

Things You'll Need

• Microsoft Excel 2003
• Spreadsheet with sum formula

Instructions

1. Select the cell with the sum formula that you wish to drag. To select a cell that you wish to drag a sum formula from, you must first have a cell that contains a sum formula. You will need to left-click on the cell that you wish to drag the formula on, to highlight and activate that cell.

2. Activate the formula drag corner. To drag a formula you can easily do so by using the cursor to highlight the lower right corner of the cell, where a drag box will appear.

3. Drag the formula to the new cells. To drag the sum formula across the span of other cells, left-click on this drag box and hold as you drag the box to highlight new cells. When you let go of the mouse button, the formula will appear in all of the cells that you highlighted when you used the drag box.

4. Test the formula to assure that you implemented it properly. Make sure that you dragged the formula properly by double-checking the math to assure that the formula is functioning as desired.

Tips & Warnings

• Dragging a sum formula is an easy way to add this formula to all cells in a row.

• If there are any existing formulas in the cells you add the sum formula to by dragging, they will be replaced with the new sum formula.