In Excel, how do I prevent the cell's formatting to be dragged along?

Question

When working with data, drag-and-drop can dramatically speed up the workflow. Sometimes we work on files which already have their formatting in place, such as borders and colors. When I want to move data around, drag-and-drop is the most intuitive thing to do. BUT, it totally wrecks the formatting. It destroys the formatting from the source and carries it to the destination.

How can we prevent this from happening? How do I set it up so that only data gets transferred using drag-and-drop?

Answer 1

on a filled cell, you will see a little square block in the lower right corner. Place you pointer over the block and it becomes a plus sign. drag your info the destination box and when you release your mouse button, you will see a box with a plus sign next to the newly filled cell. Click on the plus sign and choose the fill without formatting option. This leaves you with only the raw data being transferred.

Answer 2

You can achieve the same thing by to a RIGHT-click + Drag with the the plus sign cursor on the original cell. A dialogue will automatically pop-up after you release the mouse button and you can select "fill without formatting."