If you work with Excel on a daily basis, it’s worth spending an extra 10 minutes to sharpen and improve on your shortcut games, because this 10 minutes investment will pay back exponentially in no time. Without further ado let’s dive in.
Basic & General
Start with some basic and most frequently used ones in all kind Excel workflow. The key is to minimize the use of the mouse and do as much as you can with the keyboard to save you time and improve accuracy.
- F2 – Edit Cell, Show Formula (avoiding double-click)
- F2 + F9 – Show as input number *useful for checking numbers but press ESC after (or you’ll change formulas into an input)
- Alt + H + 0 – Add one decimal *requires pressing all keys at the same time
- Alt + H + 9 – Remove one decimal *requires pressing all keys at the same time
- Ctrl + Z – Undo Last Action
- Ctrl + Y – Redo (Reverse Undo)
- Ctrl + O – Open File
- Ctrl + S – Save File & F12 – Save As
- F9 – Recalculate Workbook
- Ctrl + ; – Insert Current Date
- Alt + W + Q – Zoom in (type in % zoom, helpful with large dataset)
- Ctrl X – Cut
- Ctrl C – Copy
- Ctrl + Alt + V – Paste special, will trigger the prompt for more options.
Selection & Navigation
Navigating through Excel spreadsheet could be time-consuming, especially if you are dealing with a large data-set.
- Ctrl + Arrowkey – Jump to Edge of Content
- Ctrl + Spacebar – Select Column
- Shift + Spacebar – Select Row
- Ctrl + Plus (# pad) – Insert Row / Insert Column
- Ctrl + Minus (# pad) – Delete Row / Delete Column
- Ctrl + F – Find
- Ctrl + H – Find & Replace
- Shift + Tab – Switch Workbooks (tabs)
- Ctrl + Pageup / Pagedown – Move to Next / Previous Worksheet Tab
- Ctrl + Home – Move to Cell A1 (top left)
- Ctrl + End – Move to Bottom Right Cell
Formatting
If your Excel sheet is full of color you might want to master this section of keyboard shortcuts.
- Ctrl + B – Bold
- Ctrl + I – Italics
- Alt + H + B + P – Top Border *for adding lines
- Alt + E + S + F – Paste Formula (after Ctrl + C ) * F4 repeats the same action to other cells after pasting once
- Alt + E + S + T – Paste Formatting (after Ctrl + C ) * F4 repeats the same action to other cells after pasting once
- Alt + E + S + V – Paste Values (after Ctrl + C ) * F4 repeats the same action to other cells after pasting once
- Alt + H + H – Fill Colour
- Alt + H + L + C + S – Delete Conditional Format
- Alt + H + F + C – Font Colour
- Alt + H + F + S – Font Size
- Ctrl + 1 – Open Formatting Dialogue
Data Manipulation
This is useful if you need to routinely working with columns and rows and Excel formulas.
- Shift + F2 – Add Comment
- Alt + R + D – Delete Comment
- Alt + D + G + G – Group Rows / Columns
- Alt + D + G + U – Ungroup Rows / Columns
- Alt + D + G + H – Hide Grouped Rows / Columns
- Alt + D + G + S – Show Grouped Rows / Columns
- Alt + = – Auto-sum Adjacent Cells
Other Miscellaneous
Apart from the above, here are few others shortcuts that you might find useful. Without going to Excel macro there are still quite a handful of keyboard shortcuts you can master.
- Ctrl + K – Edit Hyper Link
- Alt + T + U + T – Trace Precedents
- Alt + T + U + D – Trace Dependents
- Alt + T + U + A – Remove Precedent / Dependent Arrows
- Ctrl + Shift + [ – Highlight All Precedents *F5 + [Enter] – to go back
- Ctrl + Shift + ] – Highlight All Dependents
- Ctrl + [ – Highlight Direct Precedents *F5 + [Enter] – to go back
- Ctrl + ] – Highlight Direct Dependents
- Alt + ` – Show All Formula
- Alt + W + F + F – Freeze/Unfreeze Panes Around Current Cell
