Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

In Microsoft Excel, there are various keyboard shortcuts that help the user speed up the work. As there are many shortcuts, the user can’t remember or memorize all the keyword combos. Each user’s needs vary in everyday life and remembering the required shortcut keys would be widely helpful to the excel users. In this article, we will cover the complete list of shortcut keys in excel.

Excel General Program Shortcut Keys

The shortcut keys in the below table provide the shortcut keys to move around and switch between the worksheets and workbooks. This table comprises basic activity keyboard shortcuts in excel.

Shortcut Key	Description
Ctrl+N	To create a new workbook
Ctrl+O	To open an existing workbook
Ctrl+S	To save a workbook
F12	To open the Save As dialog box
Ctrl+W	To close a workbook
Ctrl+F4	To close Excel
Ctrl+Z	To undo an action
Ctrl+Y	To redo an action
Ctrl+F2	To switch to Print Preview
F1	To open the Help pane
F7	To check spelling
Shift+F11	To insert a new worksheet
Alt+Q	Helps you to navigate to go to the “Tell me what you want to do” box.
F9	To calculate all worksheets in all open workbooks
Alt or F10	Helps you turn key tips on or off.
Shift+F9	To calculate active worksheets
F4	To repeat the last command or action.
Ctrl+Shift+U	To expand or collapse the formula bar
Ctrl+F9	To minimize the workbook window
Alt+F	To open the File tab menu
Alt+H	To go to the Home tab
Alt+N	To open the insert tab
Alt+P	To go to the Page Layout tab
F11	To create a bar chart based on selected data in a separate sheet.
Alt+F1	To create an embedded bar chart based on select data (same sheet)
Ctrl+F	To search in a spreadsheet
Alt+M	To go to the Formulas tab
Alt+A	To go to the Data tab
Alt+R	To go to the Review tab
Alt+W	To go to the View tab
Alt+X	To go to the Add-ins tab
Alt+Y	To go to the Help tab
Ctrl+Tab	To switch between open workbooks
Shift+F3	To insert a function
Alt+F8	To create, run, edit, or delete a macro
Alt+F11	To open the Microsoft Visual Basic For Applications Editor

Shortcut keys for Moving Around in a Worksheet or Cell in Excel

There are shortcut keys to navigate around the worksheet, within a cell and throughout the entire excel.

Shortcut Key	Description
Left Arrow	To move one cell to the left.
Right Arrow	To move one cell to the right
Ctrl+Left Arrow	To move to the farthest left cell in the row
Ctrl+Right Arrow	To move to the farthest right cell in the row
Down Arrow	To move one cell down
Up Arrow	To move one cell up
Ctrl+Down Arrow	To move to the bottom cell in the column
Ctrl+Up Arrow	To move to the top cell in the column
Tab	To go to the next cell
Shift+Tab	To go to the previous cell
Ctrl+End	To go to the most bottom right used cell
F5	To go to any cell by pressing F5 and typing the cell coordinate or cell name.
Home	To go to the leftmost cell in the current row (or go to the beginning of the cell if editing a cell)
Ctrl+Home	To move to the beginning of a worksheet
Page Down	To move the cursor down in a worksheet
Page Up	To move the cursor up in a worksheet
Alt+Page Down	To move the cursor to the right in a worksheet
Alt+Page Up	To move the cursor to the left in a worksheet
Ctrl+Page Down	To move to the next worksheet
Ctrl+Page Up	To move to the previous worksheet
End	The user can turn on or off the end mode.

Excel Keyboard Shortcuts for Selecting Cells

To speed up the selections in excel, the user can use few shortcut keys to rapidly do the work:

Shortcut Key	Description
Shift+Left Arrow	To extend the cell selection to the left
Shift + Right Arrow	To extend the cell selection to the right
Shift+Space	To select the entire row
Ctrl+Space	To select the entire column
Ctrl+Shift+Space	To select the entire worksheet

Shotcut keys in Excel for Editing Cells

The user can also edit the cells in the sheet and the few shortcut keys listed below are the keys to edit the cells in Excel:

Shortcut Key	Description
F2	To edit a cell
Shift+F2	To add or edit a cell comment
Ctrl+X	To cut the contents of a cell or selected cell range.
Ctrl+C	To copy the contents of a cell or selected cell range.
Ctrl+V	To paste the contents of a cell, selected data, or selected cell range
Ctrl+Alt+V	To open the Paste Special dialog box
Delete	To remove the contents of a cell.
F3	To paste a cell name if the cells are named in the spreadsheet.
Alt+H+D+C	To delete the column
Esc	To cancel an entry in a cell or the formula bar.
Enter	Click on it when the entry is done completely.

Excel Shortcut keys for Formatting Cells

Let’s see few shortcut keys to format the cells in Excel:

Shortcut key	Description
Ctrl+B	To add or remove bold to the contents of a cell, selected data, or selected cell range
Ctrl+I	To add or remove italics to the contents of a cell, selected data, or selected cell range
Ctrl+U	To add or remove underline to the contents of a cell, selected data, or selected cell range
Alt+H+H	To select a fill color
Alt+H+B	To add a border
Ctrl+Shift+&	To apply outline border
Ctrl+9	To hide the selected rows
Ctrl+0	To hide the selected columns
Ctrl+1	To open the Format Cells dialog box
Ctrl+5	To apply or remove strikethrough
Ctrl+Shift+$	To apply currency format
Ctrl+Shift+%	To apply percent format

Excel Shortcuts for Select Special

There are different types of dialog boxes available for different functions. To access the select special category, we can make use of the following shortcut keys.

Shortcut Keys	Description
Ctrl + G	‘Go To’ Dialog Box
Ctrl + Shift + O	Choosing cells with comments
Ctrl + Shift + *	Choosing current region around active cell
Ctrl + A	Choosing current region
Ctrl + /	Choosing current array
Ctrl + \	Choosing row differences
Ctrl + Shift + |	Choosing column differences
Ctrl + Shift + {	Choosing all precedents
Ctrl + Shift + }	Choosing all dependants
Alt + ;	Choosing visible cells only

Shortcut keys in Excel for Number Formatting

Excel can hold a lot of data and those data can be of numeric types. To change the format of the numerics, we can use the following commands as per the requirement.

Shortcut Keys	Description
Ctrl +Shift + !	Applying number formatting to the cell
Ctrl +Shift + @	Applying time formatting to the cell
Ctrl +Shift + %	Applying percentage formatting to the cell
Ctrl +Shift + ^	Applying scientific format to the cell
Ctrl +Shift + $	Applying currency format to the cell
Ctrl +Shift + ~	Applying general format to the cell
Ctrl +Shift + #	Applying date format to the cell

Excel Shortcuts for Borders

The Excel users can also add borders to the tables in Excel and they can also make changes in the border by using the following commands.

Shortcut Keys	Description
Ctrl + Shift + &	Adding Border outline
Alt + R	Adding or Removing Border right
Alt + L	Adding or Removing Border Left
Alt + T	Adding or Removing Border Top
Alt + B	Adding or Removing Border Bottom
Alt + H	Adding or Removing horizontal interior border
Alt + V	Adding or Removing vertical interior border
Ctrl + Shift	Adding or Removing Borders
Alt + D	Adding or Removing upward diagonal Border

Excel Keyboard Shortcuts for Formulas

There are enormous formulas available in MS-Excel and they can be accessed by using the following commands.

Shortcut Keys	Description
F4	Toggling between absolute and relative referencing
Shift + F3	To open the insert function dialog box
Alt+=	To autosum the selected cells
Ctrl + ‘	Toggling formulas between on and off
Ctrl +Shift + A	Inserting function arguments
Ctrl + Shift + Enter	Entering array formula
F9	Calculating the worksheets
Shift + F9	Calculating the active worksheet
Ctrl + Alt + F9	Force calculating all worksheets
Ctrl + Shift + U	Expanding or collapsing the formula bar
Ctrl + F3	Opening the name manager
F3	Pasting the name into formula
Ctrl + Shift + F3	Defining the name using the row and column labels

Excel Keyboard Shortcuts Keys for Grid Operations

The grid operations help the user to differentiate between the specific cells and few shortcut keys to access the grid operations are

Shortcut Keys	Description
Ctrl + Shift + +	To Insert the Rows and Columns
Ctrl –	To delete either the columns or rows
Ctrl + 0	To hide the columns
Ctrl + 9	To hide the rows
Delete	Deleting the contents of chosen cells
Ctrl + Shift + 9	Unhide Rows
Ctrl + Shift + 0	Unhide Columns
Alt + Shift + Right Arrow	Grouping the rows or columns
Alt + Shift + Left Arrow	Ungrouping the rows or columns
Ctrl + 8	To hide or unhide outline symbols
Ctrl + Alt + +	To Zoom in
Ctrl + Alt –	To Zoom out
Ctrl + Scroll	To Zoom scroll

Shortcut keys in Excel for Pivot Tables

Pivot tables in excel help the user to summarize the data and the following are the keyboard shortcuts to access the pivot table features.

Shortcut Keys	Description
Ctrl + A	To select the entire pivot table
Space	Toggling between pivot table field checkbox
Alt + Shift + Right Arrow	Grouping the table items
Alt + Shift + Left Arrow	Ungrouping the table items
Ctrl –	Hiding the pivot table item
Alt + F1	Creating the pivot chart on same worksheet
F11	Creating the pivot chart on new worksheet
Alt + D + P	To open the pivot table wizard

Other Excel Shortcut Keys

The following shortcut keys are some of the other shortcut keys to access other commands in excel.

Shortcut Keys	Description
F7	To open spelling dialog box
Shift + F7	To open thesaurus dialog box
Alt + F8	To open macro dialog box
Alt + F11	To open the VBA editor
Ctrl + D	To set up the duplicate object
Ctrl + 6	To hide or show objects
Shift + F10	To display right click menu
Shift + F10 + D	To delete a comment
Alt + Space	To display the control menu

Summary

The article contains different keyboard shortcuts for different uses in Excel. Each and every user cannot remember every shortcut but they could remember the shortcut keys which could fasten up their work in Excel. This is where the shortcut keys come in handy to the users.