Gantt Chart in EXCEL

Program Description and User Guidance (Continued)

Cell-Dragging Feature:

When you click on any cell in an EXCEL spreadsheet, it establishes that cell as a working-cell, or cell of interest. It does this by showing that cell with a dark border, closed at three corners, with the lower right hand corner open and showing a tiny square.

To drag a cell of interest, that is, to copy the contents of an outlined cell to one or more adjacent cells, begin by placing your mouse cursor on that tiny square, in the lower right corner of the cell. A little cross, or plus-sign, will appear.

While that cross is showing, right-click-and-hold your mouse. While continuing to hold the right button down, move the mouse either horizontally or vertically. It will drag the contents of the initial cell into adjacent cells.

If the starting cell contains a "1," EXCEL will fill in 1s for the adjacent cells. (This feature is used for dragging the red-bars in the Gantt chart.) If you put the word "blue" in a cell and then drag it, EXCEL will copy the word blue into each adjacent cell as far as you drag the mouse. If the cell holds anything that EXCEL does not expect to be sequential, it will simply copy this repeatedly into adjacent cells.

If the starting cell holds a formula, that formula will be copied into the adjacent cells, with adjustments made for the change in cell position.

If the cell holds something EXCEL expects to be sequential, EXCEL will continue the sequence. For instance, place "Oct" in a cell. Drag that cell to the right, EXCEL will fill in the next cells with Nov, Dec, Jan, etc. If you set up two cells horizontally holding a 1 and a 2, highlight those two cells, and then drag them to the right, EXCEL will continue the series, showing, 3,4,5,6, etc. If you put a date in cell j4 and make the cell to the right =j4+7 (that is, 7 days later), you can drag that cell to the right, and EXCEL will generate new dates for each week of your calendar. When establishing the week numbers, W-1, W-2, etc., I simply placed W-1 in the first cell and then dragged it to the right. EXCEL filled in the rest.

(If your formula references a cell that will not move, you will want to freeze that cell reference in place before dragging the formula to adjacent cells. Use the "$" feature to fix that item vertically, horizontally or both - $j$4 is fixed; $j4 is fixed horizontally; and j$4 is fixed vertically. You may not need this to use the Gantt chart spreadsheet, but it can help you understand the embedded formulas.)

This cell-dragging feature works for individual cells and groups of cells. Cells can be dragged horizontally or vertically, with similar results.

This cell-dragging feature is used in this spreadsheet for moving the red-bars, up, down, and sideways to show durations in the Gantt chart format. It can also be used for adding real months to the Calendar, or for inserting correct weekly dates. It is also used to establish the formulas in certain columns.

This page created October 28, 2004

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