Paste Special → Values: the fix before you sort, send, or delete

Formulas are great until you need to sort the data, email the file, or delete the cells the formulas depend on — then they break or change. Paste Special → Values freezes the results so the numbers stay put.

The shortcut

Copy the range, then Ctrl + Alt + V, then V, then Enter. (Mac: Ctrl + Cmd + V, then choose Values.) The formulas become plain values in place. Do this before you:

Sort data that includes lookups (so results don't shift under you),
Send a workbook (so the recipient sees numbers, not #REF!),
Delete a source column that other formulas reference.

The other Paste Special tricks worth knowing

Transpose — flip rows into columns and back. Copy, Paste Special, tick Transpose.
Paste Formats only — copy a cell's formatting onto others without touching their values.
Add / Multiply — paste a number onto a range to add or multiply every cell at once (e.g., multiply a column by -1 to flip signs, or by 1 to force text-numbers into real numbers).

Watch for

Once you paste values, the formula is gone — if you still need the live calculation somewhere, keep a copy of the formula version. And "paste over" is destructive; it replaces whatever was in the target cells.