Insert and Delete Rows and Columns

Many students over time have asked me the reason for the location of the Microsoft Office Excel 2003 commands that Insert or Delete a row or column of cells. Using the Insert menu to add a row or column makes sense. A new user sees the Insert menu, clicks it and find the options to insert a cell, row or a column as the top three commands of the Insert menu. Makes good sense. But if you want to delete a cell, row, or column, you would think that there would be a Delete menu, right? Wrong. The command to delete a row, or a column is in the Edit menu. And you don’t delete a cell by itself. Go figure!

To maintain a resemblance of consistency in using these commands, I show students how to use the context menu, commonly referred to as the right-click or shortcut menu. They select a range of cells, right-click inside the block of cells, and choose the Insert and Delete commands. I also note to the students that these commands, along with other commands that have the ellipse, the three dots ( … ) that follow a command,  indicating a command contains another menu with more options to choose. In this case, the options contain the Insert and Delete commands and the options to insert or delete a row or column.

If you get frustrated trying to find the commands to add or remove a row or column, see how easy it is just to select a block of cells, right-click the cells and add or removed them from a worksheet.

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Originally posted 2009-12-27 19:55:58. Republished by Blog Post Promoter