shortcut keys for Microsoft Excel Beginners

 

Workbook Shortcut Keys

In this section, we will understand the basics of operating a workbook. We will learn how to create a new workbook, open an existing workbook, and save a spreadsheet so that you don’t lose any data or calculations that you have done. We will then go through how you can toggle between several different sheets in a workbook. 

Description	Excel Shortcuts
1. To create a new workbook	Ctrl + N
2. To open an existing workbook	Ctrl + O
3. To save a workbook / spreadsheet	Ctrl + S
4. To close the current workbook	Ctrl + W
5. To close Excel	Ctrl + F4
6. To move to the next sheet	Ctrl + Page Down
7. To move to the previous sheet	Ctrl + Page Up
8. To go to the Data tab	Alt + A
9. To go to the View tab	Alt + W
10. To go the Formula tab	Alt + M

Those were the Excel shortcuts that can help you navigate through your spreadsheet. Once the workbook creation is done, the next key step is cell formatting

Cell Formatting Shortcut Keys

A cell in Excel holds all the data that you are working on. Several different shortcuts can be applied to a cell, such as editing a cell, aligning cell contents, adding a border to a cell, adding an outline to all the selected cells, and many more. Here is a sneak peek into these Excel shortcuts.

Description	Excel Shortcuts
11. To edit a cell	F2
12. To copy and paste cells	Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V
13. To italicize and make the font bold	Ctrl + I, Ctrl + B
14. To center align cell contents	Alt + H + A + C
15. To fill color	Alt + H + H
16. To add a border	Alt + H + B
17. To remove outline border	Ctrl + Shift + _
18. To add an outline to the select cells	Ctrl + Shift + &
19. To move to the next cell	Tab
20. To move to the previous cell	Shift + Tab
21. To select all the cells on the right	Ctrl + Shift + Right arrow
22. To select all the cells on the left	Ctrl + Shift + Left Arrow
23. To select the column from the selected cell to the end of the table	Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow
24. To select all the cells above the selected cell	Ctrl + Shift + Up Arrow
25. To select all the cells below the selected cell	Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow

In addition to the above-mentioned cell formatting shortcuts, let’s look at a few more additional and advanced cell formatting Excel shortcuts, that might come handy. 

We will learn how to add a comment to a cell. Comments are helpful when giving extra information about cell content. We will also learn how to find value and replace it with another value in the spreadsheet. After this, we will look into how to insert the current time, current date, activate a filter, and add a hyperlink to a cell. Finally, we will see how to apply a format to the data in a cell.

Description	Excel Shortcuts
26. To add a comment to a cell	Shift + F2
27. To delete a cell comment	Shift + F10 + D
28. To display find and replace	Ctrl + H
29. To activate the filter	Ctrl + Shift + L Alt + Down Arrow
30. To insert the current date	Ctrl + ;
31. To insert current time	Ctrl + Shift + :
32. To insert a hyperlink	Ctrl + k
33. To apply the currency format	Ctrl + Shift + $
34. To apply the percent format	Ctrl + Shift + %
35. To go to the “Tell me what you want to do” box	Alt + Q

After working with cell formatting Excel shortcuts, the next step is to understand how to work with an entire row / column in Excel. 

Row and Column Formatting Shortcut Keys

In this section, we’ll look at some critical row and column formatting shortcuts. We will understand how to delete rows and columns, hide and unhide the selected rows and columns, and group and ungroup rows and columns.

Description	Excel Shortcuts
36. To select the entire row	Shift + Space
37. To select the entire column	Ctrl + Space
38. To delete a column	Alt+H+D+C
39. To delete a row	Shift + Space, Ctrl + -
40. To hide selected row	Ctrl + 9
41. To unhide selected row	Ctrl + Shift + 9
42. To hide a selected column	Ctrl + 0
43. To unhide a selected column	Ctrl + Shift + 0
44. To group rows or columns	Alt + Shift + Right arrow
45. To ungroup rows or columns	Alt + Shift + Left arrow