Dividing Values

It is not uncommon to need to adjust values imported from a different program, once they are in Excel. For instance, you may need to divide all the imported values by 100 or by 1000, or by some other number.

There is an easy way to perform such an operation in Excel. Simply follow these steps:

1. Select an empty cell, somewhere outside the range used by your imported data.
2. Enter the value 100 or 1000 in the empty cell. (Use a value equal to what you want to divide by.)
3. With the cell selected, press Ctrl+C to copy its contents to the Clipboard.
4. Select the imported data range. You should not select any headers or non-numeric information.
5. Choose the Paste Special option from the Edit menu. Excel displays the Paste Special dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.) To display the dialog box in Excel 2007, display the Home tab of the ribbon, click the down-arrow under the Paste tool, and then choose Paste Special.
6. In the Operation area of the dialog box, make sure you select the Divide option.
7. Click on OK.
8. Select the cell where you entered the value in step 2.
9. Press the Delete key.

That's it! All the values in your data range have been divided by the appropriate amount.