Excel: how to paste to first blank cell? - excel

Question

I'm trying to paste info to the first blank cell in colum A of a sheet? How can I do this?
This is what I have done but it paste the info 1000 times. What do I need to change?
Thanks in advance.
Range("B2:E2").Select 'Selet info to copy
Selection.Copy 'Copy
Sheets(Range("A2").Value).Select 'Goto Sheet Listed in cell A2
Dim i 'define i
For i = 3 To 1000 'Set up loop size
If Range("A" & CStr(i)).Value = "" Then 'If Cell Ai is blank
Range("A" & i).Select
ActiveSheet.Paste 'Paste info
End If
Next i
End If

Answer 1

While modifying the loop with an Exit For will work, there is a much better approach - finding the last cell in a column can be achieved with
Set lastCell = Range("A1").End(xlDown)
set freeCell = lastCell.Offset(1,0)
This assumes that there is at least one cell below A1. If you know (as in your example) that there will never be more than 1000 rows occupied, you can do this in the other direction:
Function freeCell(r As Range) As Range
' returns first free cell below r
Dim lc As Range ' last used cell on sheet
Set lc = r.Offset(1000, 0).End(xlUp).Offset(1, 0)
Set freeCell = lc
End Function
Sub testIt()
Dim p As Range
Set p = freeCell(Range("A3"))
MsgBox "the address of p is " & p.Address
End Sub
The function freeCell returns the cell you are after; the sub testIt shows that it works (and how it is called). In your case, you can greatly simplify your code to
Sub doIt()
Dim sh As Worksheet, tCell As Range
Sheets("Sheet1").Range("B2:E2").Copy
Set sh = Sheets(Range("A2").Value)
Set tCell = freeCell(sh.Range("A3"))
sh.Paste tCell
End Sub
Note - when you record a macro, you get lots of Activate, Select etc commands sneaking in. These can usually be avoided - and there are plenty of excellent articles online (and on this site) explaining why you would want to avoid them. The above snipped shows how to copy from one sheet to another without any of these.
If you are never sure that there is anything on your target sheet (no header row in row 2, for example) you could modify your code so the target cell is never above row 3:
If tCell.Row < 3 Then Set tCell = tCell.Offset(3 - tCell.Row)

Answer 2

Your FOR LOOP will run from cell A3 until A1000 and for every empty cell it will paste the value. You want to exit your loop as soon as the condition is matched. You want to add an Exit For condition.
If Range("A" & CStr(i)).Value = "" Then
Range("A" & i).Select
ActiveSheet.Paste
Exit For
End If
Source