How to Move Data in One Row in Excel to One Column

by Michelle Mangen on March 11, 2010

in Excel Tips & How-To

How to move data in Excel from Rows to Columns

A great question came to me today from @SupportMyOffice (Thanks, Jennifer, for making me smarter today!)

Question: I have a bunch of data in one row in Excel and I want to move that data into one column. Is there a one step way to do it?

My first answer: I don’t know! With a  quick Google search and I found how to do it – thus this blog post and video

  • Highlight the entire row in Excel (Shortcut Tip: click the gray box where the Row Number is displayed)
  • Right Click and select “Copy”
  • Click in the cell where you want the data to start
  • Right click and select “Paste Special”
  • Click “Transpose”

Voila – you now will have your Excel data going down the column instead of in the row

This also works for the reverse when you have data in a column in Excel but you want it to go into a row.

How to Move Data in One Row in Excel to One Column

  • http://yourjobmyoffice.com Sonia Schenker

    Michelle – I’ve run across this problem recently, but didn’t have the time or the patience to research it. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! I tried it and it is just as simple as you describe. (Did I mention thank you?) =D Sonia

    • http://www.thevirtualasst.com Michelle Mangen

      Sonia – well how cool is that :-) Always feel free to ask Excel questions – as they are good inspiration for my blog posts!

  • http://www.bencomm.com Jack@Office Phone System

    Good ‘how-to’ for something i’m sure someone out there will always be needing. Excel and Access are always giving people problems.

    • http://www.thevirtualasst.com Michelle Mangen

      Jack – Access is one thing I have never really learned but Excel – that is my baby!

  • http://www.stevescottsite.com/ Steve Scott Site

    Michelle- Great stuff! I use Excel all the time and often get frustrated with some of the stuff that’s time consuming. I’ve actually tried to figure how to change the rows to columns.

    Do you know of a website that has tutorial videos on Excel?
    .-= Steve Scott Site ´s last blog ..Successful Info Product Creation and Marketing [Part 1] =-.

    • http://www.thevirtualasst.com Michelle Mangen

      Steve — there are some really good ones on YouTube by “Excel is Fun” and I think the other is “Mr Excel”

  • http://www.stevescottsite.com/ Steve Scott Site

    Awesome Michelle! Thanks for this info…it’s going to save me a ton of headaches.
    .-= Steve Scott Site´s last blog ..Successful Info Product Creation and Marketing [Part 3] =-.

    • http://www.thevirtualasst.com Michelle Mangen

      Steve:

      Thanks for the comment and I’m glad my post will save you a ton of headaches!

  • http://website-in-a-weekend.net/ Dave Doolin

    It just occurred to me that anyone could have used Google to find this out, but if I had that problem, I probably wouldn’t see the answer if it was in front of my face.

    That’s a value add for your Michelle.
    .-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Social Media Overload! You can’t be everywhere… what to do? =-.

    • http://www.thevirtualasst.com Michelle Mangen

      Dave – you continue to be one of my favorite people! :-) Thanks for always taking the time to stop by and comment.

  • http://www.toysperiod.com Dr. Ann Voisin

    Dear Michelle,

    Yes, I agree with Dave.

    One often will not see the forest through the trees when it comes to manipulating software.

    It therefore is nice to have a kindly friend to point out how to fix the problem or how to do something.

    And, that’s exactly what you have done for this person. You have been a good teacher, and that is a very valuable role for anyone.

    Dr. Ann Voisin

    • http://www.thevirtualasst.com Michelle Mangen

      Ann – first of all – I want to say I’m so excited that I got this comment from you! It did go to spam-which I always manually check- and I rescued you from there! :-)

      Thanks, so much, for actually coming back to my blog (as I still haven’t heard anything from support at Aksimet).

      Did my site indicate to you if your comment had been submitted or did it still not give you confirmation?

  • http://www.acemoving-storage.com/ Josh@des moines movers

    Wow, I use Excel literally every day and I wasn’t aware of the Transpose feature. Luckily, I don’t think I have ever run into this problem but I’m pretty sure I’ll remember how to do it if I ever do. Thanks for making me a little smarter today! -Josh

    • http://www.thevirtualasst.com Michelle Mangen

      Josh – you are welcome. Ironically I never needed to do it myself until yesterday.

  • http://www.thevirtualasst.com Michelle Mangen

    Ann – just commented on your other comment. I’ll see if maybe my Mr. Smart Guy – Dave – if he knows how to unblock a certain URL.

  • http://www.acemoving-storage.com/ Josh@des moines movers

    Hi Michelle,

    Just wanted to let you know about Dr. Ann Voisin:
    http://techpatio.com/2010/blogging/dr-ann-voisin-linda-christas-college-spam-comment

  • http://ileane.wordpress.com/ Ileane@Blogging

    Hi Michelle,

    I’m an avid Excel fan also. You’re right about following the Mr. Excel podcast, I’ve been following him for years and he also like to answer Excel questions on his podcast.

    Thanks for this short video – I use this feature all of the time but it’s nice to see that you can solve this problem for others.

    @Ileane
    .-= Ileane@Blogging´s last blog ..Chrome Extension For Improved Readability =-.

    • http://www.thevirtualasst.com Michelle Mangen

      Ileane – sounds like you are an Excel lover like me! :-)

  • http://www.cityquotes.com.au/ David@Interstate Furniture Removals

    Awesome Michelle! Thanks for uploading a video…it really helps.

  • gwenrule62flapper costumes

    This is the exact information I needed today. I ended up just typing a shortened version of my columns into the rows. I wasn’t looking for the information when I came across your blog. Now that I know you have info about using excel I’ll know to come here. Thanks.

    • http://www.thevirtualasst.com Michelle Mangen

      Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it. I haven’t done many posts on Excel recently but hope to eventually do more. I typically wait until someone asks a question and then I do one from that. :-)

  • http://www.clicksquared.com/ Mike@Email Marketing Software

    Excellent tip Michelle! I never knew what the hell (pardon my French) that transpose function was for. I wish I’d known about this last month. We had a temp who completely screwed up the input of a whole weeks worth of accounting. If I had known this it could have saved hours.

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