What is Paste Special in Excel ?
Excel’s Paste Special offers a vast range of options to paste only particular elements of the copied cells or to perform a mathematical operation with the copied data in situations where the standard copy / paste in not suitable.
Paste special is a common function in productivity software programs such as Microsoft Office and Open Office. It is very commonly used in Word, Excel, Writer, and Calc to offer special formatting or calculations when pasting content into a document.
Where to Locate the Paste Special Function in Excel
The Paste Special function in excel sheet is located at the left side of the Excel Ribbon, under the Home tab:
When you click on the Paste Special option, a dialogue box will open as shown below:
Paste Special Shortcuts for Excel
| Shortcut | Action |
| Ctrl + Alt + V Alt-E-S Alt-H-V-S | Open’s the Paste Special dialog box |
| Alt-E-S-F-Enter | Paste Formulas |
| Alt-E-S-V-Enter | Paste Values |
| Alt-E-S-T-Enter | Paste Formats |
| Alt-E-S-C-Enter | Paste Comments & Notes |
| Alt-E-S-N-Enter | Paste Validation |
| Alt-E-S-E-Enter | Paste while transposing the data |
Uses for Paste Special in Excel
- Paste Special can be used to maintain the original formatting of the copied text or paste it as a link or a picture.
- Sometimes in Excel, you need to perform a few very real quick things. Paste Special helps to reduce time and effort needed for a particular task.
- Paste Special helps you to copy a cell or range of cells to another cells or range of cells along with the original formatting, formulas etc.
- Also, when we need to copy & paste only values without bringing anything else along with it, Paste Special is used.
- By using Paste Special, you’ll be able to manipulate data in Excel efficiently just the way you want to, saving you time & trouble.
Start Using Paste Special in Excel
Whenever, you copy text that has different formatting in an Office program, the programs like PowerPoint or Word, it automatically reformat that text to match the text of the destination. Paste Special in Excel makes the pasting action smoother by allowing you to choose which formatting (source or destination) to keep or by stripping all formatting and just pasting the values or formulas.
Also Read: H Lookup Function in Excel