Methods to clear a cell in Excel 2010

Question

I'm taking a certification course for Microsoft Excel 2010. I'm taking a class that goes over it and we all just got hit with this question:

61. In Excel 2010, which of the following can you use to erase or clear a cell or range of cells?

    A. Cell Styles Button, Shortcut menu, and Fill Handle

    B. Quick Access Toolbar, Shortcut menu, and Cell Styles button

    C. Fill Handle, Delete Key, and Quick Access Toolbar

    D. Cell Styles Button, Shortcut menu, and Undo button

The answer we got from the test booklet is A. The problem is, none of us can figure out how to clear a cell using the "Cell Styles Button".

Does anyone know how to do this, or is there a better answer?

Answer 1

The closest I think you can come is to blank the cell by applying a custom style that looks like this:

_);_);_);_)

While this is nicer than, say, setting a white font on a white background, it still isn't really a erasing or clearing the cell (per their question), but it is 'blanking' the cell (per yours). Caveats:

1. That style would be added to the cell styles, so that it could be applied with a click as described.

2. As mentioned, this doesn't actually delete the cell value; if you refer to that cell from another one, you will see the value is still there.

EDIT: Plus, you have the possibility of bonus points for answering with one of the weirdest emoticons yet!

Answer 2

Since three of the four answers include the Cell Styles button, and as it makes no sense to use the Cell Styles button for this, and furthermore, since the one answer that doesn't include the Cell Styles button also doesn't include the right-click menu (which has the Clear Contents button), and moreover, since the Fill Handle is a dubious method for deleting cell contents (you could almost as sensibly say cut the cell contents and paste to another temporary worksheet), and finally, since these types of questions say so little about one's Excel skills:

I propose instead to change the question to the following:

"What is the name of the Cell Styles button?"

Answer 3

Cell styles doesn't delete anything, it would just hide the data; it's approximately the same as setting text color to the same as background color.

If you want to delete everything, that is, contents (formula or value), format (colors, frames, number format etc), comments ++:

Home --> Clear --> Clear all

From this Clear-menu, you can also choose to delete just format etc.

Home refers to the "ribbon".