Quick Excel Shortcut That Makes It Easy to Re-Order Lists

Rearrange Items in Excel By Dragging and Dropping

Excel is one of the most powerful programs in the Microsoft Office suite -- and for many users, it's also one of the most intimidating. Let's face it, a lot of the capabilities that really help you make Excel into a lean, mean, productivity machine, like macros and formulas, just aren't intuitive. However, Excel still offers a lot of quick, drag-and-drop features that make simple operations a lot easier.

 

For example, let's say you have a short list of office supply items:

If you want to rearrange the list and insert Stamps between Adhesive and Paper, you might highlight the row, copy it, click on row 3, and select Insert Copied Cells. But there's an even faster way to do it that doesn't involve drop-down menus.

 

Just highlight the cells you want to move, grab the top of the selection border, and hold down the Shift key.

You can then drop them into place and all the cells below will automatically move down.

If you don't hold down the Shift key, Excel will ask you if you want to replace the contents of the selected cells. And if you hold down the Ctrl key, Excel will automatically perform a copy of the selected cells.