Microsoft Excel - How to Turn Off Auto-Selection of Multiple Cells

Anonymous
2020-11-13T00:09:21+00:00

Hello Microsoft Community,

I have Excel for my iPad Air 3. I’ve come across this problem that seems to randomly show itself when I am working on a spreadsheet. When using my apple pencil or fingers, I can click and move around no problem. Yet, sometimes, it then starts to auto-select multiple cells when I click a new cell. I need this to stop! I don’t know if I keep pressing some button? Searching through Google hasn’t revealed anything. I can’t get it to stop unless i restart Excel or turn off/on my ipad. But the problem keeps showing up.

As an example, let’s say I was working on B4. Once this wonky setting takes ahold, a new selection of cells is highlighted using B4 as its starting point if I click any other cell in the Excel spreadsheet.

Please help! Thank you

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-11-18T17:02:41+00:00

    Adding one to this. This is definitely a bug in excel. It started happening on my iPad Pro within the last few days. It only happens in Excel and in no other apps. And killing excel and restarting it makes it go away for a period of time.

    It appears that periodically Excel anchors the first tap so that subsequent taps change the size and range of the multiple-cell selection, rather than deselecting the first cell. It is like the shift key is being held down, but its not.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-11-19T03:38:18+00:00

    Thanks for bringing this to our attention. 

    May we also request a recording of what exactly happening as well as your observations. We may be needing to seek assistance from our Next level of support and the video recording is essential for them to asses if this might be a possible bug. 

    You can share the file by uploading it on OneDrive (check this link for steps on how to so). Then send us the link by replying to ourPrivate Message. To view this, click yourusername or account nameon the top right corner of this page. Then, click View private messages.  

    We'll keep an eye out for your update.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-11-22T09:24:25+00:00

    I am having the same problem!!! Super frustrating.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-11-23T03:45:44+00:00

    Hi Everyone,

    Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

    Your concern regarding the automatic selection of Multiple cells using Excel for iOS is under investigation and we are coordinating with our Internal support team to get this addressed as soon as possible. We will get back to you as soon as we’ve got updates from them.

    Please Standby.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-11-24T08:56:04+00:00

    I have been having this same exact problem and it has made using excel virtually impossible and extremely frustrating! Nothing will get the cells to deselect unless I exit out and restart my computer. And now thats not even working. Please fix this issue!

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