Microsoft Excel is an extremely powerful spreadsheet tool that is also quite old, with the first version being released in 1984. Each version of Excel included an increasing number of additional shortcuts, and seeing the whole list (over 200!) might be intimidating. Don’t be alarmed! For regular work, 20 or 30 keyboard shortcuts will be enough; however, others are designed for extremely specific activities such as developing VBA macros, outlining data, manipulating PivotTables, recalculating large workbooks, and so on.
For your convenience, I’ve put up a list of the most commonly used shortcuts, which you can download as a printable image (shortcuts-page1, shortcuts-page2) or a PDF file.
Excel shortcuts that are a must-have I know, I know, they are basic shortcuts, and most of you are already familiar with them. Still, for the sake of newcomers, I’ll rewrite them.
The plus sign “+” indicates that the keys should be pressed simultaneously. Most keyboards have Ctrl and Alt keys on the bottom left and bottom right sides, respectively.
- Make a fresh workbook.
- Open an existing worksheet using Ctrl + O.
- Save the active worksheet using Ctrl + S.
- The Save as dialogue box appears when you press F12 to save the active worksheet under a new name.
Data formatting
- 1 + Ctrl
- Activate the “Format Cells” dialogue box.
- “Convert selected cells to a table” (Ctrl + T). You may also choose any cell in a group of related data and turn it into a table by hitting Ctrl + T.
- Learn more about Excel tables and how to use them.
Formulas are used.
Tab
The name of the function will be autocompleted. Enter = and start typing vl, then press Tab to get =vlookup(F4 Cycle through different combinations of formula reference types. To retrieve the desired reference type, place the cursor within a cell and press F4: absolute, relative, or mixed (relative column and absolute row, absolute column and relative row).
Toggle between viewing cell values and formulas by pressing Ctrl + ‘.
Ctrl +’Copy the formula from the previous cell and paste it into the currently selected cell or the Formula Bar.
Viewing and navigating data
- F1 + Ctrl
- The Excel Ribbon can be shown or hidden. To see more than four rows of data, hide the ribbon.
- Ctrl + Tab is a combination of the keys Ctrl and Tab
- Toggle to the next Excel workbook that’s open.
- PgDown + Ctrl
- Next, move on to the next worksheet. To return to the previous sheet, press Ctrl + PgUp.
- Ctrl + G is a combination of the keys Ctrl and G
- Activate the “Go to” dialogue box. The same dialogue appears when you press F5.
- Ctrl + F is a combination of the keys Ctrl and F
- The “Find” dialogue box will appear.
- Home
- In a worksheet, go to the first cell of the current row.
- Home + Ctrl
- Return to the start of a worksheet (A1 cell).
- Ctrl + End is a combination of the keys Ctrl and End
- Go to the current worksheet’s last used cell, which is the lowest row of the rightmost column.
