Add, Edit, or Clear Cell Content

Applies to

Smartsheet
  • Pro
  • Business
  • Enterprise

For more information about plan types and included capabilities, see the Smartsheet Plans page.

The sheet owner, and collaborators with Admin or Editor access to the sheet, can add, edit, and clear cell content to control the data displayed in it.

Add Information to a Cell

  • Click on a cell and start typing to enter information. You can also copy and paste information into cells.
  • Typing into a cell with existing data will overwrite it. The previous entry will always be available if you right-click on the cell (Mac users can [Ctrl] + click) and select View History.
  • The column type determines the type of data you can enter into the cell. For example, if a column is a date type, you can click on a cell and select a date from a calendar. If the column is a drop-down list type, you can click on a cell to select an option from a list.

    TIP: You can also type text freely into any column type except read-only system columns.
     
  • You can have up to 4,000 characters in each cell.

Edit a Cell

You can edit the information in a cell directly or by viewing its contents in a form:

  • To open a cell for editing, double-click it or press [F2].
    TIP: If you single click on the cell, the existing value will be overwritten when you begin typing.

  • To change the formatting of a cell, click it, and then click the desired formatting option from the left toolbar. For more information about formatting cells, see Formatting Options. 

  • To edit the contents of a cell in a form, click the drop-down arrow next to a row's number and select Edit to open the form.
    NOTE: You must have Editor permissions or higher to see the Edit command. If you are shared to a sheet with Viewer permissions, you'll see the View Detail command. Select View Detail to view the details of the row in a form.

Clear Cell Content

Select one or more cells and press Delete or Backspace to clear the current contents.

You can also right-click a cell and select Clear Contents.

Clear Row Content

To clear the content of an entire row:

  1. Click the row number to the left of the row to highlight it.
  2. Press Delete or Backspace.

This won't delete the row itself, but it will clear all content from the cells in the row.

Clear Column Content

  1. Click the column header at the top to highlight it.
  2. Press Delete or Backspace.

This won't delete the column itself, but will clear all content from its cells.