Excel Shortcut Keys

Excel Shortcut Keys

Excel shortcut keys come in handy to maneuver through Excel much faster and more efficiently. In fact, using shortcut keys is much quicker than using a mouse.

What are Navigational Shortcut Keys?

Navigational shortcut keys help the user move around within Excel. These shortcut keys allow the user to move across cells or worksheets.

Sample Data

All columns except column F contain hardcoded data. Column F contains cells with a formula that multiplies the corresponding row in column B with the corresponding row in column E. In other words, column F multiplies quantity by price to find total price. We will use this data to demonstrate the following Excel shortcut keys.

Navigational Shortcuts

The first group of Excel shortcut keys involves navigational shortcuts.

Arrow keys move to the next cell in the direction of the arrow key.

• If the user currently has cell A2 selected and presses the right arrow key, Excel will activate cell B2.

Ctrl + Arrow Keys will move to the end of a group of data in the direction of the arrow key. If the current active cell is at the end of a group of data and before a gap of empty cells, pressing this shortcut will jump the gap to the nearest cell with data in it in the direction of the arrow key.

• If the user currently has cell A2 selected and presses ctrl + down, Excel will move to cell A4.
• If the user then presses ctrl + right, Excel will move to cell B4.
• If the user then presses ctrl + right another time, Excel will jump across the gap to the nearest non-empty cell to the right, thus moving to cell E4.

Shift + Arrow Keys will expand selection from the current active cell toward the direction of the pressed arrow key.

• If the user currently has cell A2 selected, and presses shift + down twice, Excel will select cells A2:A4. Cell A2 will remain the active cell within the selection.

Ctrl + Page Up/Down will move to previous or next worksheet/tab.

Shift + Ctrl + Page Up/Down selects adjacent worksheets in a group.

Function/Formula Excel Shortcut Keys

The next series of Excel shortcut keys involves function and formula shortcuts. This helps you manipulate the data within the cells more efficiently.

Ctrl + D will fill down formula using the topmost cells. This shortcut intuitively performs differently with different selections.

• If only one cell is selected, this will fill that cell with the data or formula from the cell directly above it.

If the user has cell A2 selected before pressing Ctrl + D, cell A2 will fill with cell A1.

If the user has cell F3 selected, which contains the formula “=B3*E3”, cell F3 will fill with cell F2, which contains the formula “=B2*E2”. However, the formula is relative, so it will adjust itself to “=B3*E3”

• If only one row is selected, this will fill all cells in that row with data or formula from the cells directly above it.

In this example, row 2 was selected before pressing Ctrl + D. Row 2 has filled itself with data from the row above.

• If more than one row is selected, this will fill all cells in that row with data or formula from the topmost row of cells.

In this example, the user has selected A2:F4 and pressed ctrl + D. Excel has taken the contents of the topmost cells (row 2) and filled the cells below.

Learn More

Thank you for reading this CFI guide to Excel shortcut keys. To learn more, see the following CFI resources.

• Excel Shortcuts
• Excel Shortcuts on PC and MAC
• Excel for Dummies
• How to Add a Secondary Axis in ExcelExcel Course
• See all Excel resources