Excel Beginners

Keyboard Shortcuts: Step 4 To Mastering Spreadsheets

quick selections and formatting them

Intermediate Shortcuts

These shortcuts will focus on taking a next step in navigation, cell selection, and formatting. The goal with these shortcuts is to give you more control over organizing and presenting your information.

Navigating Within and Between Worksheets

Note: this assumes you have data in at least the first three by three grid of your workbook and have at least two sheets in the file.

1. Moving to the end of a range

• A range is defined as an unbroken group of cells that either contain information or are blank, if for example you have information in cells A1 to A3, blank cells in A4 to A6 and another cell with information in A7, then you would have four different ranges in column A

• Range 1 is a filled range (A1:A3), range 2 is a blank range (A4:A6), range 3 is a filled range (A7), range 4 is a blank range (A8 to the bottom of the worksheet)

CTL + ↑    CTL + ↓    CTL + ←    CTL + →

2. Moving to the last cell in a workbook

• Takes you to the last cell in the workbook that is being registered, what this means is the combination of the last row with data in it, and the last column with data in it

• For example: if you only have data in cell A56, and in F1, the “last” cell in the workbook will be cell F56

CTL + END

3. Moving to the first cell in a row

• Takes you back to cell in column A of the row you are currently in unless it is hidden, if it is hidden it will take you back to the first visible column

HOME

Formatting Cells and Ranges

Note: this assumes you have data of the right type in the cells you are trying to format (ex: numbers stored as text are not considered to be of the right data type) and your system settings are in US English

1. Add borders to the selected cell(s)

• The borders added will be the default thin solid lines applied to the outside edges of the selected range(s)

CTL + SHIFT + &

2. Remove borders from the selected cell(s)

• The borders will be removed, and you will end up with the default grid formatting for the selected cell(s)

CTL + SHIFT + _

3. Enter the current date into the selected cell(s)

• Puts the date into the selected cells and formats them as a date data type

CTL + ;

4. Enter the current time into the selected cell(s)

• Puts the time into the selected cell(s) and formats them as a time data type

CTL + SHIFT + ;

Cell Selection

1. Select all cells within the current range

• Selects the entire current area surrounding the active cell

CTL + SHIFT + *

CTL + A

CTL + SHIFT + SPACE

2. Select the entire current column

• Selects the entire column range of the active cell

CTL + SPACE

3. Select the entire current row

• Selects the entire row range of the active cell

SHIFT + SPACE

4. Select all the cells above / below / left / right of the selected cell within the current range

• Selects all the cells of the same type (empty or with data) within the active range, if there is a blank cell in between two filled in cells it will “break” the range

• You can combine multiple arrow keys together to select an entire range

CTL + SHIFT + ↑

CTL + SHIFT + ↓

CTL + SHIFT + ←

CTL + SHIFT + →

5. Select only the visible cells in the currently selected range

• If there are hidden rows/columns, the values in those cells will not be included in the information you cut/copy/paste after running this shortcut

ALT + ;