Rotate data by converting columns to rows (or vice versa)

Say you have a column of text: Dairy Meat Beverages Produce That you want to change into a row, like so: Dairy Meat Beverages Produce

Or maybe you have a row of data that you want to change into a column. Moving the data manually, one item at a time, would be a tedious process. To save time, you can use the Paste Special command to quickly transpose a column of data to a row of data, or vice versa.

Move data between rows and columns

1. Copy the data in one or more columns or rows. 2. Before you paste the copied data, right-click your first destination cell (the first cell of the row or column into which you want to paste your data), and then click Paste Special. 3. In the Paste Special dialog box, select Transpose, and then click OK. You'll find theTranspose check box in the lower-right corner of the dialog box:

Starting with your first cell, Excel pastes the data into a row or column. Notes

Columns and rows can not overlap. For example, if you select values in Column C, and try to paste them into a row that overlaps Column C, Excel displays an error message. When you go to paste a column or row, the destination area must be outside of the original values. If you copy and paste data from more than one column, Excel places the data from the leftmost column on top. For example, say you copy data from columns A and B of a worksheet, and you paste the data into another worksheet starting at row 1. Excel places the data from column A in row 1, column B in row 2, and so on. If you don't see the Paste Special command, make sure you right-click the first destination cell. You'll also find the command on the Edit menu. If you still don't see the command, make sure you're using Excel 2000 or later.

Convert a Row to a Column in Excel the Easy Way

Sometimes weve entered data in a column in Excel, only to realize later that it would be better to have this data in a row, or vise-versa. Heres a simple trick to convert any row or set of rows into a column, or vise-versa, in Excel. Please Note: This is tested in Excel 2003, 2007, and 2010. Here we took screenshots from Excel 2010 x64, but it works the same on the other versions. Convert a Row to a Column Heres our data in Excel:

We want to change these two columns into rows. Select all the cells you wish to convert, right-click, and select copy (or simply press Ctrl+C):

Now, right-click in the cell where you want to put the data in rows, and select Paste Special

Check the box at the bottom that says Transpose, and then click OK.

Now your data that was in columns is in rows!

This works the exact same for converting rows into columns. Heres some data in rows:

After copying and pasting special with Transpose selected, heres the data in columns!

This is a great way to get your data organized just like you want in Excel.