Excel Video 246 introduces a second way to insert and delete. It’s more flexible, but you have to be careful. The Insert and Delete buttons offer more flexibility to insert and delete cells, rows, and columns. The catch to the flexibility is that if you aren’t careful, when you insert and delete cells or groups of cells you can easily scramble your data. You’ll see a couple of examples in Excel Video 246 where inserting cells moves your data either down or to the right. If you aren’t careful, the rows move so that the data in each cell in the row no longer relates to the same patient or claim. Be especially careful if you’re working with a large spreadsheet and all of the data doesn’t fit on your screen. It may look like you’re safe, but data outside your screen may be scrambled.
I’m not trying to discourage you from using the Insert and Delete buttons. Just be careful that the increased flexibility doesn’t cost you data accuracy.
The Insert and Delete buttons also allow you to insert and delete sheets or tabs in your spreadsheet. I typically insert and delete sheets another way. We’ll start talking about tabs next time.
