Tips for Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Other Applications

Keyboard Shortcuts in Excel

Why It Matters To You

Increased familiarity with keyboard shortcuts reduces your reliance on the mouse, resulting in more efficient work and generally, a more comfortable experience. Often times, a lot of repetitive motion stress is caused by the constant reaching for the mouse, often for trivial actions. If you learn to keep your hands off the mouse, you can reduce the amount of stress on your arms and wrist.

As a general rule, the ALT key activates menu items in every Microsoft application as well as many other popular programs. Take a look at the Main Menu in Excel. You should see an underlined letter for each menu item. For example, in the Edit menu, the "E" is underline. Hold down ALT and the underlined letter to activate that menu item. Keep holding ALT and hit the underlined letter for any of the items under Edit and you'll activate the sub menu item ... and so forth.

Selected Key Stroke Shortcuts in Excel

Key Strokes Result Key Strokes Result
Alt E, S, V Paste only values Ctrl + B Inserts or deletes bold formatting
Alt E, S, T Paste only formats Ctrl + D AutoFill down - copies topmost cells down in highlighted range
Alt E, M, C Make copy of entire worksheet Ctrl + ] Select only cells with formulas that refer directly to the active cell
Alt + Arrow Active menus from keyboard Ctrl + R AutoFill right - copies left most cells to the right in highlighted range
Alt + Enter Insert a hard break in the same cell Crtl + Y Repeat the last action
Shift + Arrow Highlights range using arrow keys instead of mouse Ctrl + Z Undo the last action
Shift + Tab Move from right to left within the selection Ctrl + Arrow Moves to the next break in the line
Shift + Spacebar Select the entire row Crtl + Home Moves to the beginning of the worksheet
Shift + End, Arrow Highlights all cells to the last empty/used cell in the direction of the arrow Crtl + End Moves to the end of the worksheet
Shift + Ctrl + 8 Highlights a contiguous data range Ctrl + Page Down Move to the next sheet in the workbook
Shift + Ctrl + Arrow Selects a contiguous row or column of data Ctrl + Page Up Move to the previous sheet in the workbook
End, Arrow Activates last empty/used cell in the direction of the arrow Ctrl + Hyphen Delete cell
Esc Deactivate menus from keyboard Right Click Mouse ctivates selected features without use of the menus
Windows+D Show Desktop Windows, D View last 18 documents accessed
Ctrl + 1 Brings up the Format Cells wizard Windows, P Accesses your list of Programs

Clearly there are more shortcuts available than the 20 or so I listed above, those are just some of the ones I use most often. Force yourself to use shortcuts and you'll quickly remember where they are.

Notes

Last updated9/2/07
Application VersionExcel 2003
AuthorMichael Kan
Pre-requisitesNone
Related TipsNone