It’s ridiculously easy to learn how to select entire tables in Excel if you follow along with me.

Selecting entire Excel tables feels like trying to pull the right file from a messy stack on a tight deadline. It seems simple but can slow you down if you don’t know the right trick. I’ve been there—clicking and dragging endlessly, only to miss a row or column.

That’s why I put this tutorial together. I’ll walk you through the easiest ways to select full tables, step by step. By the end, you’ll be able to handle it quickly and confidently. Let’s jump in and get this sorted!

Using Keyboard Shortcuts

This is the fastest way to select an entire unstructured or structured table in an Excel worksheet.

Click anywhere within a table you want to select and press Ctrl + A. Excel will the whole table.

Alternatively, you can press Ctrl + Shift + Space keys together to achieve the same result.

Using the Mouse

If your worksheet has only one table you can click on the Select All button in the top left corner of the Excel grids and just below the Name Box.

This will also select the entire table along with the rest of the sheet.

Using the Name Box

If you’ve applied structured table formatting to a dataset in Excel, the table gets a table number automatically. Excel uses that number to identify the table when you’re creating formulas and filters.

You can find the table number in the worksheet’s Name Box. It’s situated in the top left corner near the Formula Bar.

Click on the drop-down arrow in the Name Box and select the table you want to highlight in one go.

Excel doesn’t recycle a table number. For example, if you’ve deleted Table1, it won’t be used by a new table you might create.

So, it’s somewhat difficult to anticipate the table number of the intended table you want to select.

Either, you plan ahead of creating tables in your worksheet and create the exact numbers of tables you need and don’t delete any of those.

In that case, the table numbers will follow the serial in which they were created. For example, if there are 10 tables in the worksheet, all of these are numbered based on the serial in which you had created them.

Also, this method is applicable to any sheet of the active worksheet. For example, you’re in Sheet1 (2) and would like to select a table in Sheet 1.

Click on the Name Box and select the table number you’d like to highlight in the other worksheet.

Excel will select the intended table and take you to the source worksheet as well. This method is particularly useful when you need to refer to a table in another worksheet of the same workbook.

Using the Go To Tool

The Go To tool lists all the recent cells and cell ranges that you have navigated to. Also, it contains all the named ranges and tables of the spreadsheet. If you’ve opened the workbook recently and haven’t navigated to any cell range, you won’t see any history of such selections except all the tables and named ranges.

So, press the shortcut key for Go To which is F5 or Ctrl + G.

The Go To dialog shows up displaying a list of named ranges and tables.

Select the table you wish to highlight and click OK.

Excel will quickly select the entire table in Excel.

Using Excel VBA

If your worksheet contains many tables and you frequently need to select the whole tables you can use and run Excel VBA programming to automate the whole process. In this section,

I’ll show you how easy it is to automate the process and get visual instructions. When you execute the script, Excel will show input boxes to invite inputs from you. You can interact with these dialog boxes and finally, when all of the inputs have been supplied, Excel will select the whole tables you wanted to highlight.

I’ve structured this section of the tutorial in such a way that even if you didn’t code any lines before, you’ll still be able to follow the steps I’ve mentioned here.

Now, to learn how to set up a VBA macro, click on the following link:

📒 Read More: How To Use The VBA Code You Find Online

If you’re done going through the above instructions, great work! Now you’ve got what it needs to become an Excel VBA programmer.

Now, use the following VBA script to create a macro that will select entire tables in Excel:

Sub SelectTables()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    Dim tbl As ListObject
    Dim tableList As String
    Dim tableNames As Variant
    Dim inputTables As String
    Dim tableName As Variant
    Dim selectedTables As String
    
    ' Loop through all worksheets and list all tables
    For Each ws In ThisWorkbook.Worksheets
        For Each tbl In ws.ListObjects
            If tableList = "" Then
                tableList = tbl.Name
            Else
                tableList = tableList & vbCrLf & tbl.Name
            End If
        Next tbl
    Next ws
    
    ' Show the list of tables and input box to enter table names
    inputTables = InputBox("Available tables:" & vbCrLf & tableList & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _
                           "Enter the names of the tables to select (comma-separated):", "Select Tables")
    
    ' Split the input into individual table names
    tableNames = Split(inputTables, ",")
    
    ' Select the specified tables
    For Each tableName In tableNames
        tableName = Trim(tableName)
        selectedTables = ""
        
        For Each ws In ThisWorkbook.Worksheets
            For Each tbl In ws.ListObjects
                If tbl.Name = tableName Then
                    tbl.Range.Select
                    selectedTables = selectedTables & tbl.Name & ", "
                End If
            Next tbl
        Next ws
        
        ' Handle table not found
        If selectedTables = "" Then
            MsgBox "Table '" & tableName & "' not found.", vbExclamation
        End If
    Next tableName
    
    ' Inform user of selection
    If selectedTables <> "" Then
        MsgBox "Selected tables: " & Left(selectedTables, Len(selectedTables) - 2), vbInformation
    End If
End Sub

Once the macro is up and running, press Alt + F8 to bring up the Macro dialog box.

Select the SelectTables macro and hit Run.

This macro, once executed, will ask you to enter the table name which you wish to select entirely.

Excel will show the selected table instantly.

Conclusions

So, now you know how to select an entire table in Excel using various quick and intuitive methods.

You can use Excel commands and user interface-based methods, like keyboard shortcuts, mouse cursor, the Name Box, and the Go To tool when you occasionally select the entire table.

Alternatively, you can use the Excel VBA-based technique to achieve the same result through automation.

Did you like this Excel tutorial? Do you have a better suggestion to select an entire table in Microsoft Excel? Comment below to let me know.