25 Excel Shortcut Keys

25 Keyboard Short Cuts in Excel: So You Can Get the Job Done & Get Home Faster

If there's one thing that's common in every job in the world, it's that it seems like we never have enough time. Whether it's lack of ample time to send out that extra status report or rushing to finish our progress charts, our daily tasks never seem to fit into the 9 hour work day. This leads us to spend more time in the office, and less time with our families and friends. As we experience this problem on a daily basis, we learn to strive for efficiency in our everyday tasks.

Most office workers use Microsoft Excel on a regular if not daily basis as part of their job. We use it for different purposes - some to track data and create reports and others use it to track time or software issues. No matter how you use it and what you use it for, I'm sure you'd love to be able to use it faster and more efficiently than normal.

You must be wondering, "what does he mean by more efficient?" Simply put, less clicks = more work. In this article I'll be showing you 25 of the most useful Excel shortcut keys there are. You should be using these keyboard short cuts in Excel so that you have to work less! When I say shortcut, I'm not talking about your basic "Select All" and "Copy/Cut/Paste" commands. Those are the shortcuts you ALREADY use every day! What you need are shortcuts you SHOULD be using every day. As to not waste any more of your time, let's get on to it.

Shortcut Keys to Manipulate & Edit Cells:

We all know how it can get frustrating working with hundreds and hundreds of cells in a worksheet. Here are a few shortcuts that can turn that frustration into jubilation!

1. [CTRL + 9] - Hide the currently active row
2. [CTRL + 0] - Hide the currently active column
3. [Shift + Spacebar] - Select the entire row
   
   Useful when you're in a cell whose row you want to select
   
   Shift+Spacebar does it for you!
4. [CTRL + Spacebar] - Select the entire column
5. [CTRL + - ] - Displays the Delete dialog box to delete the selected cells.
   
   Now you can select and delete multiple cells without having touch the mouse!
6. [CTRL + 1] - open format dialog. I use this to set borders, fills, cell-formats, alignment etc.
   
   Replaces the tedious Click Cell -> Right Click -> Format Cell series of clicks
7. [F4] - to repeat last action, like adding rows or adjusting formats.
8. [CTRL + D] - fills down.
   
   Select the cells you want to fill. Make sure the first cell contains the basis for the rest.
   
   This avoids the hassle of having to drag down multiple pages just to fill several cells.
9. [CTRL + Shift + $] - Formats the number in the current cell to currency format
   
   Select the cells you want to change, then press CTRL+Shift+$
   
10. [CTRL + Shift + %] - Formats the number in the current cell to percentage format
    
    
    Ensure that your values are in decimal value for proper conversion, similar to the values above (i.e 0.50 = 50%)
11. [CTRL + ' (apostrophe)] - Inserts the value of the cell above the current one into the currently selected cell
12. [CTRL + Shift + ; (semicolon)] - Enter the current time into the current cell
13. [CTRL + ; (semicolon)] - Enter the current date into the current cell
14. [Alt + = (equal sign)] - Inserts a formula in the current cell to add up all of the numeric cells above it (assuming no gaps)
    
    Replaces the hassle of having to type the formula
    
    Just ensure there are no gaps in between the cells
Keyboard Short Cuts to Help Navigate Excel:

Let's face it, only a handful of us are lucky enough to work with Microsoft Excel and only be working on 1 worksheet. The rest of us have to deal with around 5 worksheets in every Excel workbook we have open. How do we manage and navigate through these worksheets properly and easily?

15. [CTRL + Page up] - Jump to previous worksheet in the workbook
16. [CTRL + Page down] - Jump to next worksheet in the workbook
17. [CTRL + F6] - Jump to the next workbook you have open
18. [CTRL + F9] - Minimize the current workbook
19. [CTRL + F10] - Maximize the current workbook
20. [CTRL + W] - Closes the selected workbook
MS Excel Shortcuts we should've been taught a long time ago!

The next set of shortcuts is a set of shortcuts that you can't really categorize other than in the "I-wish-you-taught-me-these-sooner" category. As these shortcuts have no similarity other than they're quite really useful but are scarcely used.

21. [F9] - Shows the result of a part of a formula
    
    Select the part of the formula you want to view the of
    
    VERY VERY useful for long and complex formulas
22. [CTRL +F2] - Open Print Preview
23. [Shift + F3] - Launch the Insert Function dialog
24. [F7] - Launch the spell checker
    
    Nobody wants to look like a fool in front of their bosses just because they can't spell "Failled" properly.
25. [F12] - Launch Save As to save the current document
    
    Gone are the days of the CTRL+Shift+S. Nobody really told us what replaced it.. until now!

I can't imagine having to go through another minute of working with Microsoft Excel without using these shortcuts. These short cuts should work for any version of Microsoft Excel. Take note, you don't have to remember all of them. Just find the ones that you are using most often in your daily tasks and try to maximize it to save time. Just remember, the more you use these shortcuts the less you have to work!