Can this be done by someone who knows little about Excel

[Nobody]

I have a worksheet that has a column for quantities, I have to subtract 1
from the quantity of 120 rows. Other than doing it manually can I select
those rows and do something that will subtract 1 from each of the cells I
select.

In other words if a cell currently has 9 and need it to be changed to 8

Thanks

 

[John C]

Assuming all cells in your range are numbers, and all numbers need to be
decreased by 1.
Type -1 in a cell, copy that cell
Select your range, Paste Special --> Add

Voila!

 

[Ron de Bruin]

This is very easy

Enter 1 in a empty cell
Copy that cell

Select your cells with the values
Right click on the Selection
Choose Paste special
Check Subtract
OK

 

[Bob Phillips]

Enter 1 in a free cell and copy that cell to the clipboard, Ctrl-C

Select all the numbers to be actioned

Goto Edit>PasteSpecial, and in the Operation section, click the Subtract
option

OK out and clear the 1 from the previous cell

 

[Nobody]

The format was "general" I changed it to number and tried what all of you
said and when I select special paste all I get is a box that gives me 2
options "Text" and "unitext"

what should I do next?

Thanks

 

[ShaneDevenshire]

Hi,

You already been given the solution. The paste special command is a very
useful command which you should add to your collection of basic Excel
techniques. As you might have noticed you can Add, Subtract, Multiply or
Divide as well as many other options.

Notice there are three areas in the Paste Special box, in many cases you can
make a selection from each area for a single command.

Maybe more interesting and related to your question - you can use commands
like Add, Subtract, Multiply and Divide when copying a number, as you did,
but pasting it on a formula. That means if you have a set of formulas and
you want to adjust them by multipling all of them by 5, you could copy a cell
containing 5 and using Paste Special Multiply to multiply each formula by 5
in a single step.

And finally, the cell or cells you copy don't have to contain numbers, they
can contain formulas. So it is possible to copy a range of formulas and
paste special Add it to another range of formulas.

 

[Nobody]

Thanks for the info but did you see that I said

I select special paste all I get is a box that gives me 2
options "Text" and "unitext"

There are no other choices