What Keyboard Shortcuts Do You Want To See In Excel?

About 18 months ago, I wrote a post on keyboard shortcuts:  http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2006/02/23/538311.aspx.  It was a well-read post that generated a lot of comments and a lot of follow-up email.  To this day, I get emails about this post, a number of which have been people asking for an XLS version of this PDF (http://isamrad.com/dgainer/1_02-23-2006.pdf), presumably so folks can layer their own stuff on top.  Accordingly, I thought it was time for a another post on the topic.  Here is a link to the XLS version of the "Excel Keyboard Shortcuts" PDF:  http://officeblogs.net/excel/Charlie_Keyboard_Shortcut_Book.xls.


While I am at it, though, I wanted to do two other things.  First, I wanted to evangelize two keyboard shortcuts that I only recently learned (re-learned, really) – specifically, ALT + =, which inserts an autosum, and second, CTRL + SHIFT + U, which resizes the Excel formula bar (Excel 2007 only).  Both help me keep my hands on the keyboard, which makes things more efficient.

Second, and more importantly, I wanted to folks’ ideas for new keyboard shortcuts.  What Excel action would you like to see a shortcut for?  For example, I think it would be great to have a shortcut that allowed users to clear filters from Autofilter or PivotTables.  Please add your ideas as comments to this post – that will help others see what you are suggesting, and potentially spark some new ideas.

Office Blogs Comments

Comments: (37) Collapse

  • Not a new one, but the return of one that worked prior to Excel 2007.  Alt + ' used to allow for the selection of a named style by typing the first few letters of the style name, which was great for quickly selecting a style.  In Excel 2007 this brings up the style details box, but does not allow for a different style to be selected.  Although the Style Gallery is good, nothing can replace a quick KB shortcut to a named style.

    Jules

  • Another one that was practically disabled in Office 2007:

    F4 function key: Repeat Last Action.

    This shortcut makes me so efficient in Excel 21003 and earlier versions. The loss of it except for trivial cases in Excel 2007 causes me an excess of frustration.

  • Jon, both Ctrl-Y and F4 work as expected in Excel 2007 for me. What are the cases in which they don't work for you?

  • I've set up macros for Paste Values (Ctrl+Shift+V) and Paste Formats (Ctrl+Shift+M) that I use about 18,000 times per day.  

  • One thing I find many people don't know about it using F4 when editing a cell.  It toggles the reference type of a cell depending on what is selected or highlighted.

  • I agree with Shawn...I also have macros for both of those paste special options.

  • Myself, I'd appreciate it if you'd quit using keystroke combinations that used to be reserved for user macros, e.g., [Ctrl]+[Shift]+U. Silly me, I think of [F2] in relation with the formula bar (because I abhor in cell editing), so the heretofore unused [Ctrl]+[F2] would have made sense as an alternative.

    Anyway, I'm perverse. I like unlimited user customization, so a built-in wrapper around Application.OnKey to allow users to remap function keys however they want would be ideal. Adding yet more obscure keystroke combinations would be a bad thing. Many programmers editors (including the Microsoft Editor from the late 1980s) included this feature.

  • BTW, got an explanation for

    groups.google.com/.../0f012260e699a5f0

  • quote: "Paste Values (Ctrl+Shift+V)"

    that one, and "convert formulas to values" (essentially Ctrl-C, Ctrl-Shift-V, then) would be something I'd use every day.

  • My two macros that I use a lot are

    Close without saving and

    Autofilter-Show All

  • I'm with several others.  Paste Values, without a doubt.  

  • 1.  Fill Series - I want to select a 1 column range whose first n cells are not empty and use a shortcut to simulate that I'd dragged the fill handle.

    2.  Fill Adjacent - When I double-click on the fill handle, my formula is copied down as far as the left-adjacent column has data.  I want a shortcut that does this.

  • Like many I would love to see paste special values, I currently have a number of macros I use to shortcut (all Ctrl+Shift+) actions I do hundreds of times a day:

    Paste Special (Ctrl+J)

    Passte Special Values (Ctrl+K), & Transpose (Ctrl+Shift+K)

    Paste Special Formulas (Ctrl+L), & Transpose (Ctrl+Shift+L)

    Paste Special Formats (Ctrl+M), & Transpose (Ctrl+Shift+M)

    Paste Special Comments (Ctrl+N), & Transpose (Ctrl+Shift+N)

    Group Rows (Ctrl+Shift+Z)

    Ungroup Rows (Ctrl+Shift+X)

    Group Columns (Ctrl+Shift+C)

    Ungroup Columns (Ctrl+Shift+V)

    Indent Cell(s) (Ctrl+Shift+I)

    Outdent Cell(s) (Ctrl+Shift+O)

    Protect Worksheet (Ctrl+Shift+P)

    Password Protect Worksheet (Ctrl+Shift+Y)

    Unprotect Worksheet (Ctrl+Shift+U)

    These are now so ingrained in me that I get frustrated when I am using a machine that I haven't installed my Personal.xls on.

  • I just want to be able to alter keyboard shortcuts. I much prefer control-shift-z for redo, for example. I use both Mac and Windows and on the Mac, you can customize your keyboard shortcuts. It's hard for me to get used to control-y as redo.

  • ctrl+shift+M= show classic Menus

    ctrl+shift+alt+c = fix bugs in excels super duper Calculation engine

    sam

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