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Fill Blank Cells From Above - Video

This Excel data entry video shows an easy way to fill blank cells, like the missing headings in the screen shot below.

Fill Blank Cells From Above

In this video, watch the steps to manually select and fill blank cells, with the value from the cell above.

Then, use a mouse shortcut to change the formulas to values, so you can safely sort and filter the data.

For written steps, and the sample file, go to the Fill Blank Cells page.

Fill Blank Cells Video Transcript

Here is the transcript for the Fill Blank Cells video.

Introduction

Sometimes in Excel, you'll end up with data like this, possibly exported from another system where you've got headings, but blank cells below those headings.

Here we can see region and it's only listed once, and then blank to the end of the region, and the employees in each region. You might have one or multiple employees, but again, blank below those employee names.

This is fine for reading the list, but if you want to work with the data, perhaps filter it or sort things, then you need to fill in these blank cells. Here's a quick way to do that.

Select Blank Cells

First, we'll select columns A and B where there are blanks.

• Then on the Ribbon's Home tab, go to Find & Select, Go To Special.
• In the Go To Special window, click Blanks, and then click OK.

Add a Formula

All the blank cells are selected now and we're going to put in a very simple formula that just says get the value from the cell above.

• Type an equal sign and then press the up arrow on your keyboard. You can see the formula here now has changed to A2.
• To fill that formula into all the selected cells, press the Ctrl key and then tap Enter.

That puts that same formula into all the selected cells.

Change to Values

Now we want to change these formulas to values so that we can move things around without having the values change.

• I'm going to select columns A and B where we filled the blanks and then point to the border of what is selected. You'll see a four-headed arrow there.
• Press the right button on the mouse and drag slightly to the right. Then drag right back to where you started.
• Let go of the right mouse button, and the pop up menu has some choices. Click Copy Here As Values Only.

Now everything in here is a value instead of a formula, and you can sort or filter without any problems.