Copy Google Sheet with Formulas

How To Copy Formula In Google Sheets

Often when working in Google Sheets youll want to enter the same formula in multiple cells.

You could manually re-type the formula each time it appears, but this would be slow even for a small spreadsheet and could take hours on larger spreadsheets with more complex formulas.

Instead of taking the time to retype your formulas, try one of the options below to copy formulas in Google Sheets.

Copy Formulas Using the Menu

Step 1

Select the cell containing the formula you want to copy.

Open the Edit menu and select the Copy option:

Step 2

Select the cell you want to copy the formula to.

Open the Edit menu and select the Paste option. The formula will appear in the selected cell.

Step 3

If the cell you copied the formula from had any formatting, the formatting will be copied to the new cell along with the formula.

If you do not want to copy the formatting, you can use the Paste Special submenu just below the Paste menu option to select the type of paste you want to use.

Step 4

To do this, open the Edit menu, hover over the Paste Special submenu to open it, and select Paste Formula Only

Step 5

This type of pasting formulas does not change the destination cell formatting

Copy Formulas Using Keyboard Shortcuts

You may have noticed in the screenshots for the menu option above that the copy and paste menu items had keyboard shortcuts beside them.

You can use these keyboard shortcuts more quickly copy and paste formulas:

1. Select the cell containing the formula you want to copy
2. Hit the copy keyboard shortcut. This is Ctrl + c on Windows and Command + c on Mac
3. Select the cell you want to copy the formula to
4. Hit Ctrl + v on Windows or Command + v on Mac to paste the formula
5. Note that you cannot use the keyboard shortcuts to Paste Special with Formulas Only

Copy Formulas Using the Drag Handle

A third way to copy formulas in Google Sheets is to use the drag handle to drag the formula to adjacent cells

Step 1

Select the cell containing the formula you want to copy.

A small blue square will appear in the lower right-hand corner of the selected cell. This is the drag handle:

Step 2

Click and drag the drag handle to select the cells you want to copy the formula to. You can drag across a row or up/down a column.

Step 3

When you release the mouse, the formula will be copied to all cells that you dragged the selection over.

You can repeat this process to cover more cells until youve copied the formula to all necessary cells:

Note that you also cannot use Paste Special options here. All formatting from the original cell will be copied to all new cells along with the formula.

Summary

Example Spreadsheet: Make a copy of the example spreadsheet

In this tutorial, I covered how to copy a formula in Google Sheets. Want more? Check out all the Google Sheets Tutorials.