Multi-Sheet Row Insert

As we discussed in the past couple of days, we can use the Shift and/or CTRL keys to select multiple tabs (a.k.a. sheets) at the same time.  Once they are selected, changes we make on the active sheet will be mimicked on the other selected sheets as well…good and bad.  Good, because if we have 4 sheets that are set up exactly the same way, then we can make changes to all of them at the same time.  Bad, because if we forget and leave all of the sheets selected while making a change that only applies to the active one, we could accidentally overwrite information on the other sheets.

Let’s assume, for now however, that we have 4 sheets that all contain a similar set up that we would like to change slightly, for instance, the 4 sheets that we created automatically earlier this week, in “Report Recurrence,” through our Report Filter options.  Each sheet has the same pivot table on it, starting in cell A1.  After we select all four tabs, we can then highlight rows 1 to 4 (again, you do this by left-clicking on the 1 at the far left of the sheet and dragging your mouse down to the 4). 

Then right-click anywhere on the selected area and choose Insert.  You can now switch to any of the other tabs and verify that four rows have been inserted on each tab…or, you can just take my word for it.  If you don’t want to do that, don’t forget to re-select all four tabs before you proceed!

Next, let’s add the title that we want to see appearing on each of the sheets.  Click on cell A1 and type in, “Monthly Revenue and Profit Statistics by Region.”  In cell A2, we could type, “For YTD 2009.”  Once again, if you flip to any of the other tabs, as long as they were all selected when you were typing, you will see the titles on each of the tabs.

Finally, again with all the tabs selected, highlight cells A1 and A2, and change the font size and choose Bold font.  As before, these changes will also appear on all the tabs.  There are a fair number of changes that can be made on multiple sheets at once.  If they cannot be made on multiple sheets, they will be “greyed-out” in your menu options.  Which is another point – if you are working in Excel and your menu options won’t work because they are greyed-out, check to ensure that you haven’t accidentally selected multiple tabs.  If you have done this, then before proceeding, you may also want to check what you have accidentally changed in the non-active sheet!