Selection mode problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Richard L. Trethewey
  • Start date Start date
R

Richard L. Trethewey

I seem to have set Excel 2003 to a particular cell selection mode that I can't
seem to turn off. My cursor is the big plus sign and when I click on any cell
in a spreadsheet - existing files or even an empty spreadsheet - the selection
mode stays active and no matter where I mouse to, the selection keeps expanding.
No click, right-click, shift-click, alt-click, or any keyboard command I could
think of turns this off. Nothing in the menus seems appropriate, and I can't
seem to find anything in the online help on this issue, so I'm obviously
confusing some terminology. I would be very grateful for some advice. Thanks!

Rick Trethewey
 
Richard

A common cause of this is that you are in "Extended" or "Add" mode.

If you see "EXT" or "ADD" down on the status bar try hitting F8 key a couple
of times.

F8 will will toggle you in and out of Extended mode. SHIFT + F8 will put you
in "ADD" mode.

With the "ADD" mode you need to re-click the mouse. This is used to select
non-contiguous cells and ranges without using the CTRL key.

With the "EXT" mode you just click once and drag. All cells will be selected.

If you are using a wheel-mouse tap the wheel a couple times.

Also see David McRitchie's "Ghosting" at

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/ghosting.txt


Gord Dibben Excel MVP
 
Thanks for the information. It hasn't solved my problem. I did manage to
change the cursor from the hollow plus sign to the filled plus sign and now the
selection is limited to one row or one column, but I can't break out of this
select mode once I click in the spreadsheet. I'm stongly considering simply
re-installing the software and hoping for the best. But if you think of
anything else, I'd be very grateful. Thanks again!

Rick Trethewey
 
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