Probably the best gift you could give your finance staffers right about now: more time in their days.
And one of the best ways to do that is to clue them in to some serious timesavers concerning one of their most-leaned-upon tech tools: Excel.
We’ve scoured the web for the best Excel shortcuts out there and assembled them in this comprehensive list.
While your people are certainly tapping some of them, we doubt they’ve gotten all of these down. It’s well-worth distributing to everyone who relies on spreadsheets to get the job done day in and day out.
Find the ones that work best for them
Note: The following shortcuts work with all versions of Excel. You’ll also see there are multiple ways to do some of the same functions, so staffers can pick and choose the ones that work best for them:
Ctrl+A Select all
Ctrl+B Bold
Ctrl+C Copy
Ctrl+D Fill down
Ctrl+F Find
Ctrl+G Go to …
Ctrl+H Replace
Ctrl+I Italic
Ctrl+N New Workbook
Ctrl+O Open
Ctrl+P Print
Ctrl+R Fill Right
Ctrl+S Save
Ctrl+U Underline
Ctrl+V Paste
Ctrl+X Cut
Ctrl+Y Repeat
Ctrl+Z Undo
F1 Help
F2 Edit
F3 Paste Name
F4 Repeat last action
F5 Go to
F6 Next pane
F7 Spell check
F8 Extend mode
F9 Recalculate all workbooks
F10 Activate menu bar
F11 Create a new chart
F12 Save as
Ctrl+: Insert current time
Ctrl+; Insert current date
Ctrl+” Copy value from cell above
Ctrl+’ Copy formula from cell above
Shift+F1 What’s This?
Shift+F2 Edit cell comment
Shift+F3 Paste function into formula
Shift+F4 Find next
Shift+F5 Find (Search box)
Shift+F6 Previous pane
Shift+F8 Add to selection
Shift+F9 Calculate active worksheet
Ctrl+Alt+F9 Calculate all worksheets in all open workbooks regardless of whether they’ve changed since the last calculation
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F9 Rechecks dependent formulas and then calculates all cells in all open workbooks, including cells not marked as needing to be calculated
Shift+F10 Display shortcut menu
Shift+F11 New worksheet
Shift+F12 Save
Ctrl+F3 Define name
Ctrl+F4 Close
Ctrl+F5 XL Restore window size
Ctrl+F6 Next workbook window
Ctrl+F7 Move window
Ctrl+F8 Resize window
Ctrl+F9 Minimize workbook
Ctrl+F10 Maximize or restore window
Ctrl+F11 Insert 4.0 macro sheet
Ctrl+F12 File open
Alt+E+D Delete a cell
Alt+F1 Insert chart
Alt+F2 Save as
Alt+F4 Exit
Ctrl+Shift+F3 Create name by using names of column and row labels
Ctrl+Shift+F6 Previous window
Ctrl+Shift+F12 Print
Alt+Shift+F1 New worksheet
Alt+Shift+F2 Save
Alt+= AutoSum
Ctrl+ Toggle value/formula display
Ctrl+Home Move to beginning of worksheet
Ctrl-Arrow Move to edge of region
Alt-Page Up/Page Dn Move left/right one screen
Shift-Enter Move up through a selection
Ctrl+Shift+A Insert argument names into formula
Alt+’ Format style dialogue box
Ctrl+Shift+! Comma format
Ctrl+Shift+@ Time format
Ctrl+Shift+# Date format
Ctrl+Shift+$ Currency format
Ctrl+Shift+% Percent format
Ctrl+Shift+^ Exponential format
Ctrl+Shift+& Place outline border around selected cells
Ctrl+Shift+_ Remove outline border
Ctrl+Shift+* Select the current region around the active cell in a pivot table report, select the entire pivot table report
Ctrl+ Insert
Ctrl- Delete
Ctrl+ 1 Format cells dialogue box
Ctrl+2 Bold
Ctrl+3 Italic
Ctrl+4 Underline
Ctrl+5 Strikethrough
Ctrl+6 Show/hide objects
Ctrl+7 Show/hide standard tool bar
Ctrl+8 Toggle outline symbols
Ctrl+9 Hide rows
Ctrl+0 Hide columns
Ctrl+Shift+( Unhide rows
Ctrl+Shift+) Unhide columns
Alt or F10 Activate the menu
Shift+Ctrl+F Format drop down list
Shift+Ctrl+P Point size drop down list
Esc Cancels an entry in the cell or formula
Have we missed any shortcuts you or your staffers find particularly helpful when working in Excel? Please share them in the comments below.
