

Save time in Excel? Start with keyboard shortcuts! Keyboard shortcuts are one of the best ways to save time when using Microsoft Excel. Many of them are easy to learn and you save time immediately.
Besides saving time, keyboard shortcuts have two other major advantages:
In this article, we introduce you to 10 of the most important keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Excel. We suggest, you start with the first one and go through to number 10. When you are done with these 10 shortcuts, we invite you to take a look at our print-out overview of the extended version of 33 shortcuts.
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Contents
Jump to the end of the current block by pressing Ctrl + Arrow
Let’s start with an easy one. You probably know how to navigate through cells with the arrow keys in Excel. Now you can take it to the next level:
Press Ctrl
What happens? Correct, you jump.
With just this keyboard shortcut you can already save a lot of time. Why don’t you try it right away?
Select complete block by pressing Shift + Ctrl + Arrow in Excel.
How do you select cells in Excel? Most people use the mouse to select a range of cells. You can do it much faster:
Hold the Shift key
Now we can combine our first selected keyboard shortcut with Shift. Go to cell A1 like you can see on the right hand side. Instead of just jumping by pressing Ctrl
The complete keyboard shortcut is:
Select the entire row (or column) by pressing Shift + Space (or Ctrl + Space)
This keyboard shortcut is very helpful if you want to highlight a row or column or insert grouping etc.
After selecting the row, you can add the grouping by pressing Alt + Shift + Arrow right
With the previous keyboard shortcut you’ve learned how to select the entire row or column. This one is the next step: Insert row or column grouping.
This shortcut works on both rows and columns, depending on what you’ve selected before.
Easily enter a cell with F2
Very often you want to enter a cell, for example, for changing the values or formulas. When you navigate to a cell and just start typing, you usually overwrite the existing content. So how to enter a cell?
Actually, it’s very easy: Just press F2
This keyboard shortcut is extremely useful, as you can use it also in the Windows Explorer. When you select a file in the Windows Explorer, you can change the file name by pressing F2
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Fix the cell range: Press F4 when typing a formula.
The $-sign has a special meaning in Excel. It fixes the cell range in formulas. So if you copy and paste a formula with $-signs, the fixed cell ranges won’t change or adapt.
Adding the $-sign is often very troublesome. The keyboard shortcut simplifies that process. When entering a formula, press F4
Please note: This only works when you enter formulas. It doesn’t work when you are “outside” the cell and not in “typing mode”.
Repeat the last action with F4
You’ve highlighted a cell in yellow color. Now you want to repeat this action. Instead of searching for the yellow fill color again, just press F4
You probably wonder now: F4 again? Our previous keyboard shortcut was already using the F4 key. The difference: Repeat an action with F4 when you are “outside” the cell. It doesn’t work when you are typing within an Excel cell.
Insert line breaks into cells: Press Alt + Enter when entering text into a cell.
How often do you enter text into an Excel cell? Almost all Excel workbooks contain some kind of text. So the probability is high that you also need this shortcut:
Adding a line break within an Excel cell. Press Alt
Note: This keyboard shortcut only works when you are typing into an Excel cell. It doesn’t work when you aren’t entering text and therefore are “outside” of the cell.
Open the cell format window with Ctrl + 1.
Formatting cells often takes a lot of time. But there is a shortcut which speeds up the process. Press Ctrl
Rename worksheets with Alt –> o –> h –> r
How do you rename a worksheet in Excel? Double click on the sheet name? There is a faster way: Press the following keys after each other:
Alt
Now you can start renaming the sheet.
With this article, you’ve learned 10 very useful keyboard shortcuts for speeding up your work with Microsoft Excel. If you feel confident with these 10 shortcuts, please take a look at these the top 33 keyboard shortcuts. The free printout should help you to get with these new keyboard shortcuts as well. Please enjoy saving time!
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Comments 2
Deepak Khanna
Hiii,
M from India & still working on SAP (System Application Programming) from last 9 months & making spreadsheets converting into pivot table . Will u plz write me on mail regarding that.
Thanks & Regards
Deepak Khanna
Henrik Schiffner
Hi Deekap Khanna,
Please take a look at our article http://professor-excel.com/pivotable-how-to-prepare-data-for-creating-pivot-tables-in-excel/. Does this one help you?
Best regards
Henrik