Active Cell in Excel

What is the Active Cell in Excel?

When you select a cell in the worksheet, that cell is the active cell. To see which cell is active, look for the cell with the dark green thick border and see the active cell’s address in the address bar. Then, when you start entering data with your keyboard, it will enter straight into the active cell.

Enter Data in the Active Cell

You can enter data in the active cell using two ways:

• Enter data with the keyboard.
• Paste it there by copying it from somewhere else.

Enter Data with Keyboard

You need to start typing with your keyboard to enter it. Or you can also use the keyboard shortcut F2 to edit the cell and then enter data by typing.

If you want to enter a function in the active cell, you can enter the “Equal to” and then start entering the function you want to use.

Copy-Paste the Data

You can also use Copy and Paste to add data to the active cell. Use the keyboard shortcuts Control + C to copy and Control + V to paste. (Copy and Paste)

Navigating

Navigating from one cell to another makes another cell the active cell. For Example, if your active cell is the B2, you can navigate using the arrow button from your keyboard.

The other way is to use the mouse and click on the cell you want to select, and then that selected cell will be the active cell.