Swap Two Selected Cell Ranges In Excel
What This VBA Code Does
Often times when I am preparing spreadsheet reports, I find myself needing to perform minor manipulations of the data to better tell my story or to appease the look that management wants.
Below is a simplistic example of what happens to me all the time when I am putting schedules together really quickly. Management takes a look at my first draft (see far left table) and decides they want the Catalog-related variance to swap locations with the In-Store variance. This table is within a dashboard, so I cannot simply cut the entire rows and insert them. Manually, I would have to insert cells, do some copy/pasting, and delete some cells. All painfully tedious, especially if you are in a crunched for time.
So let’s use a little VBA magic to see if we can automate this process for us.
VBA Code:
The below code will allow you to select two ranges of cells (they must be the same in size) and switch their contents.
Sub SwapTwoAreas()
'PURPOSE: Swap two selected ranges' formulas/values with each other
'SOURCE: www.TheSpreadsheetGuru.com
Dim rng As Range
Dim StoredRng As Variant
Set rng = Selection
If rng.Areas.Count <> 2 Or rng.Areas(1).Cells.Count <> rng.Areas(2).Cells.Count Then
MsgBox "Please select two ranges that are the same size before running this macro"
Exit Sub
End If
'Store first selected cell area
StoredRng = rng.Areas(1).Cells.Formula
'Swap first area with the second
rng.Areas(1).Cells.Formula = rng.Areas(2).Cells.Formula
'Populate second area with the first
rng.Areas(2).Cells.Formula = StoredRng
End SubUsing VBA Code Found On The Internet
Now that you’ve found some VBA code that could potentially solve your Excel automation problem, what do you do with it? If you don’t necessarily want to learn how to code VBA and are just looking for the fastest way to implement this code into your spreadsheet, I wrote an article (with video) that explains how to get the VBA code you’ve found running on your spreadsheet.
Getting Started Automating Excel
Are you new to VBA and not sure where to begin? Check out my quickstart guide to learning VBA. This article won’t overwhelm you with fancy coding jargon, as it provides you with a simplistic and straightforward approach to the basic things I wish I knew when trying to teach myself how to automate tasks in Excel with VBA Macros.
Also, if you haven’t checked out Excel’s latest automation feature called Power Query, I have put together a beginner’s guide for automating with Excel’s Power Query feature as well! This little-known built-in Excel feature allows you to merge and clean data automatically with little to no coding!
How Do I Modify This To Fit My Specific Needs?
Chances are this post did not give you the exact answer you were looking for. We all have different situations and it’s impossible to account for every particular need one might have. That’s why I want to share with you: My Guide to Getting the Solution to your Problems FAST! In this article, I explain the best strategies I have come up with over the years to get quick answers to complex problems in Excel, PowerPoint, VBA, you name it!
I highly recommend that you check this guide out before asking me or anyone else in the comments section to solve your specific problem. I can guarantee that 9 times out of 10, one of my strategies will get you the answer(s) you are needing faster than it will take me to get back to you with a possible solution. I try my best to help everyone out, but sometimes I don’t have time to fit everyone’s questions in (there never seem to be quite enough hours in the day!).
I wish you the best of luck and I hope this tutorial gets you heading in the right direction!
After 10+ years of creating macros and developing add-ins, I've compiled all the hacks I wish I had known years ago!
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Chris Newman
Chris is a finance professional and Excel MVP recognized by Microsoft since 2016. With his expertise, he founded TheSpreadsheetGuru blog to help fellow Excel users, where he shares his vast creative solutions & expertise. In addition, he has developed over 7 widely-used Excel Add-ins that have been embraced by individuals and companies worldwide.