thanks for your help so far, but im still hanging up at a certain point. i
want this to happen to the whole worksheet, not just a selection, so that may
be part of the problem.

For Each Cell In Selection
If Cell = "total board" Or Cell = "total metal" Or Cell = "ITEM" Or Cell
= "0" _
Or IsNumeric(Cell) Or Cell.HasFormula _
Or IsError(Cell) Then
Cell.Delete
End If
Next Cell

thats the code im trying to use, and theres something wrong with it
somewhere. everything still shows up, even with the code you gave me that
only had "total board" and "total metal" removed. please let me know if you
can be of anymore help. thanks.