How to Apply a Formula to an Entire Column in Excel? 3 Easy Ways

(Note: This guide on how to apply a formula to an entire column in Excel is suitable for all Excel versions including Office 365)

Formulas form the bricks in the building of Excel. There are a variety of formulas in Excel, all used for a variety of operations and to get the resultant value. There are more than a thousand formulas and there are unfathomable possibilities for combining them to arrive at your result.

Especially when dealing with Excel tables or PivotTables, you’d have to enter the formulas in several places. As the usage of formulas is expectedly very high, it can be very arduous to type in the formulas into all the cells.

Let us now see 3 different methods on how to apply a formula to an entire column in Excel.

You’ll learn:

3 Different Ways to Apply Formulas
- By Using Copy-Paste Method
- By Using the Autofill Method
- By Copying Formula Using the Fill Down Command

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3 Different Ways to Apply Formulas in Excel

Copy-Paste Method

By copying and pasting the formula in one cell to other cells, you can apply the formula to an entire column in Excel.

With the formula in one cell, right-click and select Copy or press Ctrl+C.

After copying the formula, select the cells where you want to use the formula. Left-click on the cell and drag it to select the cells.

Finally, paste the copied formula either by right-clicking and selecting Paste or by pressing Ctrl+V.

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Using the Autofill Method

Dragging the auto-fill handle is one of the most common and easiest ways to apply a formula to an entire column in Excel.

To use autofill, click on a cell and hover over to the bottom-right corner of the cell where you can see the mouse pointer change to a crosshair-like fill-handle pointer.

Now, click and drag the pointer in any direction over the cells to which you want to apply the formulas.

Once you leave the click, the selected cells will be automatically populated with the formulas.

*Drag the fill handle to copy the formula*

By Using the FillDown Option

You can also use the FillDown option from the main menu ribbon to apply the formula to multiple cells in Excel.

First, enter the formula in the first cell of the column and press Enter.

Then, select the rest of the cells to which you want to apply the formula by left-clicking and dragging the mouse or by using the Ctrl button and arrow keys.

Now, navigate to the Home main menu ribbon, and under the Editing section, click on the dropdown from Fill.
Here, you can choose if you want to apply the formula upwards to the above cells or downward to the below cells and even, the cells to the left and right. In this case, let us apply the formula downwards. So, click on Down.

*Select down from the fill button on the Home main menu ribbon*

This applies the formula to all the cells below the selection.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How to apply formulas to multiple cells by copying?

First, right-click on the cell with the formula and copy it or press Ctrl+C. Now, select all the cells you want to apply the formula and paste them by right-clicking and selecting Paste or by pressing Ctrl+V.

How to Use the FillDown option to apply formulas?

Use the FillDown option to apply formulas to multiple cells by going to the Home main menu and under the Editing section, clicking on the dropdown from Fill and selecting Down.

Final Thoughts

Formulas are an integral part of calculations and operations in Excel. Knowing how to use formulas easily and efficiently will help you perform calculations quickly and help you arrive at the expected result.

In this article, we saw how to apply a formula to an entire column in Excel in 3 different ways. You can use the copy-and-paste method, the autofill method, or the FillDown option to apply the formulas. Choose the method that suits your purpose the best.

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Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!

How to Apply a Formula to an Entire Column in Excel? 3 Easy Ways