Do you wish to learn how to move a table in Microsoft Excel? Read this Excel guide until the end!

Moving a table in Excel sounds easy, right? Just click, drag, and drop. But the moment you try, things start falling apart. Your formatting disappears, formulas break, and suddenly, your neat table looks like a disaster.

It’s like shifting a whiteboard full of notes. One wrong move could smudge the writing, so you must be fully cautious. Otherwise, you’ll have to redo all the writing on the whiteboard from scratch. So, moving a table is exactly as risky as this.

But don’t worry, I’ve got you. In this guide, I’ll show you the simplest ways to move tables without messing up your data and its formatting.

Using the Drag and Drop Action

The simplest way to move a table from one cell range to the other is by using the drag and drop movement on the worksheet.

Click on the source data table and press Ctrl + A to select the entire table.

Now, click on any edge of the table to enable the drag movement.

Without letting go of the click, move the mouse to the destination cell range and let go of the click.

Excel will move the table to the new location.

The content and its formatting won’t change at all.

However, the dimensions of the cells will shrink since you have moved the table to a new location where the cells are already in the default size.

Once you have moved the table, keep it selected.

Now, double-click on the border of the column header alphabet, like between the C and D columns, as shown in the above image.

The cell dimension will be reset automatically.

Using Copy/Cut and Paste

You can also use the cut and paste functions on the Excel worksheet to move tables within the worksheet or between worksheets.

Firstly, select the whole table by selecting any cell of the table and pressing the Ctrl + A keys together.

Now, press Ctrl + X to cut the table from its source location.

Go to the destination cell or cell range, which can be in a different worksheet or workbook, and press Ctrl + V to paste.

If you use the simple paste function, Excel will change the position of the table, but the cell sizes will change according to the destination cell range’s default dimension.

Alternatively, you can try the Paste Special feature of Excel to import the column widths along with the table data.

To use this function, simply copy the table from the source worksheet. Don’t use the cut function.

Go to the destination cell and press Ctrl + Alt + V to bring up the Paste Special dialog box.

Select the Column widths option and click OK to clone the column width from the source dataset.

The selected cell range’s cell sizes will change according to the source table’s cell dimensions.

You can now simply copy and paste the table again.

This way, the moved table will automatically fit the new destination. You don’t need to change the column widths manually.

Moving a Table as an Excel Object

Let’s consider you don’t want to move the table as Excel cells. Instead, you want to move the table and convert it to a picture or an Excel object at the same time. In that situation, this method will come in handy.

Select the entire table that you wish to move by clicking anywhere on it and pressing Ctrl + A.

Now, select the destination cell, which can be on the same worksheet, in a different worksheet in the same workbook, or in a different workbook as well.

Right-click and click on the extension arrow of the Paste Special option in the right-click context menu.

An overflow menu will open on the right side of the parent context menu.

Click on the Picture option below the Other Paste Options section.

Excel will move the table to the destination cell range as a picture.

You can now copy this image and use it in other Microsoft apps, like PowerPoint, Word, etc.

Moving a Pivot Table

In this section, I’ll explain how to move a PivotTable in Excel.

Moving a PivotTable is similar to any other Excel table, except there’s a dedicated Move PivotTable command. It helps you to move the PivotTable freely within the workbook.

The tool automatically formats the table after moving, so you don’t have to manually reformat the table. It also visually guides you through the PivotTable movement process so you don’t make any mistakes when setting up the table in a different location, referencing the source dataset.

Select the PivotTable you want to move and go to the PivotTable Analyze tab in the Excel ribbon menu.

Now, click on the Move PivotTable command in the Actions block. You’ll see the Move PivotTable dialog box.

If you wish to relocate the PivotTable to a dedicated sheet, click on the New Worksheet option and click OK.

Excel will create a new sheet in the workbook and place the PivotTable there, linking to the source dataset.

Alternatively, if you wish to move the PivotTable to a different location in the same worksheet, bring up the Move PivotTable dialog box and select the Existing Worksheet option.

Select everything inside the Location field and delete.

Now, simply select a cell in the active worksheet where you wish to move the PivotTable.

Click OK to complete the table movement process.

Alternatively, you can simply select the PivotTable and press Ctrl + A to select the entire table.

Drag and drop the table anywhere on the worksheet to move it.

Or, you can cut or copy the PivotTable from the source and paste it in any worksheet where you need it within the workbook.

When you manually drag and drop or copy and paste a PivotTable, just like any other Excel table object, you’ll need to manually change the column width to fit the entire data in individual cells.

Using Power Query

Let’s say there’s a table in your worksheet created on Power Query that has a query in it mapped to the source dataset or data model. Now, you wish to move the table to a different cell range in the same worksheet. Or, you want to relocate the table to a different worksheet in the same workbook.

Let me show you below how you can do that in easy steps.

Firstly, go to the source worksheet and click on the query table you wish to move.

Now, go to the Data tab and click on the Queries & Connections command.

The Queries & Connection navigation panel will open on the right side.

There, you should see all of the tables below the Queries column.

Double-click on the table that you wish to move.

The Power Query Editor interface will open.

This is a good time to make some changes to the table before moving it. Click on the File tab in the Power Query Editor interface.

Select Close & Load To from the File menu.

If you don’t see Close & Load To there, close the Power Query Editor interface by clicking the File > Close & Load command.

Select the table again and go to the Data tab.

Click on the Existing Connections command.

The Existing Connections dialog box will open.

Go to the Connections tab and look for the table you wish to move below the Connections in this Workbook section.

Double-click on the table you want to move.

The Import Data dialog box will show up.

To move the Power Query connection table to a dedicated worksheet, click on the New worksheet option and click OK.

Excel will create a new worksheet and relocate the table there.

Alternatively, if you wish to change the location of the table in the same worksheet, click on the Existing worksheet option.

Delete the existing cell range in the field just below the Existing worksheet option.

Select a new cell or cell range in the active worksheet and click OK on the Existing worksheet dialog box.

Excel will create a copy of the table in the new location.

The existing queries, connections, source dataset in the local storage, and source dataset in any external database will stay intact.

Conclusions

So far, you have learned different ways to move a table in Microsoft Excel using simple methods, like drag and drop, copy and paste, cut and paste, and move table as an Excel object.

Also, you learned how to move a PivotTable from one place to another.

Moreover, you’ve learned how to move a PivotTable without interfering with the existing data connections.

If you’ve learned something new from this Microsoft Excel tutorial, use the comment box to share an acknowledgment if you wish. Also, drop a few lines if you think the tutorial can be improved.