Paste Values Only: Formulas Out, Numbers Stay

Copying a range of formulas and pasting it somewhere you only want the resulting numbers often ends the same way — a #REF! error shows up, because the formulas pointed to cells that no longer exist, or mean something different, at the new location. Paste Special with the Values option sidesteps the problem: it pastes only the result of the calculation, not the formula that produced it.

A typical scenario

Petra calculates monthly bonuses using formulas tied to a performance sheet, and needs to copy the result to an archive sheet where the numbers shouldn't change anymore. A regular paste (Ctrl+V) would carry over the formulas too — but on the new sheet, those would point to different, often empty or entirely unrelated cells, resulting in a pile of #REF! errors or silently wrong numbers.

With Paste Special → Values, only the final number gets carried over, no formula. The archive sheet holds exactly the bonuses calculated that month, and they stay the same even after the source performance sheet gets overwritten with new numbers next month.

How to do it

1. Copy the range you want to transfer (Ctrl + C).
2. Click the destination and press Ctrl + Alt + V to open the Paste Special dialog.
3. Choose Values — only the calculation results get pasted, no formulas or references to other cells.
4. The same dialog has other useful options too: Formats pastes just the cell's appearance without content, All except borders is handy when you want to keep the destination range's formatting, and Transpose swaps rows for columns and vice versa.
5. Options can be combined too, like Values and number formats, if you want to carry over the result along with how it's formatted (currency, percentages) but without the underlying formula.

The best tools

• Excel's built-in Paste Special (Ctrl+Alt+V) — covers the vast majority of situations where you need to separate a result from the formula behind it.
• Google Sheets — the quick Ctrl+Shift+V shortcut pastes just the values directly without opening another dialog, a step faster than Excel if that's the only option you need.
• On a Mac, Paste Special is available via the Edit → Paste Special menu, or through a custom keyboard shortcut you can set up in Preferences — the default combo can vary by version.

What you get out of it

• Time: roughly 5 minutes a week that would otherwise go to fixing #REF! errors or figuring out why a formula behaves differently in its new location.
• Reliable archives: transferred numbers stay the same even after the source data changes later — exactly what you want for a record of the past.
• Flexibility: transposing, or transferring just the format without content (or the other way around), also solves other common situations when reorganizing sheets, not just copying results.

Pro tip

You can use the Ctrl+Alt+V combo and the Values option within a single cell too — copy a formula, paste it as a value in the same spot, and you've replaced the formula with its current result. Handy before sending a sheet to someone who shouldn't see how the numbers were calculated.