F2 - Select some characters - can I extend selection both ways?

[janderson]

I find that when I am editing long, nested formulas in a cell, it is
often helpful to use Excel's F9 function to evaluate a highlighted
portion of the formula.

However, I often find that, after I have highlighted the part that I
wish to see evaluated, I regretfully decide that I wished I had
highlighted a different part.

Now, I know that if I have made a selection from the cursor to the
right, I can extend the selection further to the right by holding down
the Shift key and pressing the right arrow key. Similarly, if I have
made a selection from the cursor to the left, I can go further left.

But can I extend the selection at BOTH ends?

I don't think so and it drives me crazy.

It also drives me crazy that, if Excel gives an error on a partial
calculation, it loses track of the selection you have made within the
cell. Often, this will be because you have missed a single parenthesis
in a series of nested functions but rather than give you another chance
to get it right by extending your selection by a single character (at
EITHER end, see above), Excel just dumps you out into a subset of your
selection and gives you another shot at messing things up.

Further, it seems that if one is in the process of editing a cell, it
is not possible to run any macros, nor does Excel expose objects such
as "Activecell.CurrentSelection".

So what I want to know is:
1. Am I right that nothing can be done?
2. Do others know anything that can help me cope with this problem?
3. Is this a capricious and uncaring World of arbitrary constraint and
petty frustration?

 

[Bucky]

But can I extend the selection at BOTH ends?

I don't think so either. But there are 2 suggestions that might be
helpful:

1. If you extending the selection to the right, then realize you need
to go back to the left, dehighlight the current selection by pressing
RIGHT ARROW, LEFT ARROW (without shift). Then SHIFT+LEFT ARROW until
you've extended to the left.

2. For complicated nested equations, you can insert line breaks in the
formula (with ALT+ENTER) to make the parentheses nesting easier to read
and highlight.

 

[Niek Otten]

Did you check Tools>Formula auditing>Evaluate formula?

 

[janderson]

Bucky wrote:

I don't think so either. But there are 2 suggestions that might be
helpful:

1. If you extending the selection to the right, then realize you need
to go back to the left, dehighlight the current selection by pressing
RIGHT ARROW, LEFT ARROW (without shift). Then SHIFT+LEFT ARROW until
you've extended to the left.


2. For complicated nested equations, you can insert line breaks in the
formula (with ALT+ENTER) to make the parentheses nesting easier to read

and highlight.




Niek Otten wrote


Did you check Tools>Formula auditing>Evaluate formula?

Firstly, apologies if this reply is horribly mangled. I am using Google
Groups, not a Proper Newsreader (TM).

Bucky, I like your RIGHT ARROW, LEFT ARROW combination. This will
definitely help me. However, it's still awkward, with a long selection,
to get back to where one started.

Using Alt+ENTER may help but I am in a group of four financial analysts
who all need to work with the same spreadsheets and I can imagine there
will be discontent, wrath, and confusion when we all decide to adopt
slightly different conventions for how we like to see a formula
displayed.

Niek, I have tried using the Evaluate Formula thing but find that it
has fixed ideas about what parts of a formula it is willing to allow
you to evaluate separately and in what order it will let you do this.

I suppose there may be a heavy-duty solution involving grabbing the
Window handle of the Formula Bar and hoping there may be some exposed
Window properties to do with the current selection in that window.
However, I don't have time to get into that myself.