Comprehensive List of Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

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Few weeks back I have invited all of you to share your excel keyboard shortcuts in a open thread. More than 50 people commented on that post and shared a hundred excel keyboard shortcuts with us. There were so many wonderful keyboard shortcuts and tricks buried in the comments section of that post. During the weekend, I spent sometime to collect all these beautiful shortcuts and arranged them neatly so that you can easily learn them. Here is the complete list of Excel Keyboard Shortcuts.

Special thanks to all the commenters on the original post. Without you I couldn’t have learned these shortcuts.

Comprehensive List of Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

Here is the complete list of excel keyboard shortcuts.

Note: I have *ed some of the most important shortcuts. These are very useful and extremely time saving ones. You may want to remember a few to boost your productivity.

Select the whole column

Selection

CTRL + SPACE

Select the whole row

Selection

SHIFT + SPACE

Select table

Selection

SHIFT + CTRL + SPACE bar

Save

Selection

CTRL + s

Select visible cells only

Selection

ALT + ;

Select entire region

Selection

CTRL + A

Select range from start cell to far left

Selection

SHIFT + Home

Select range from start cell to end in direction of arrow

Selection

SHIFT + End + arrow

Select a continuous range of data (e.g. pivot), no matter where your cursor is.

Selection

CTRL + *

Select blank cells

Selection

F5 + ALT + S + K + ENTER

Select all cells with comments

Selection

CTRL + SHIFT + O

Select all cells that are directly or indirectly referred to by formulas in the selection

Selection

CTRL + SHIFT + {

Select all cells with formulas that refer directly or indirectly to the active cell

Selection

CTRL + SHIFT + }

Selects all the way to a1 from cursor position

Selection

CTRL + SHIFT + HOME

Select cells in the direction of arrow

Selection

CTRL + SHIFT + Arrow

Previous sheet

Navigation

CTRL + Page Up

Next sheet

Navigation

CTRL + Page Down

Launch GO TO Dialog (from here you can select special or jump to a cell or range)

Navigation

F5

Go to top left (will go to top left of freezed pane if set)

Navigation

CTRL + Home

Go to last non-blank cell

Navigation

CTRL + end

Go to previous sheet

Navigation

CTRL + PgUp

Go to next sheet

Navigation

CTRL + PgDn

Print

Navigation

CTRL + p

Toggle between workbooks in a given session of excel.

Navigation

CTRL + TAB

Change the type of cell reference from relative to absolute or semi-absolute

Formulas

F4

Repeat whatever you did last

Formulas

F4

Debug portions of a formula (select and press)

Formulas

F9

Sum range

Formulas

ALT + =

Enter array formula

Formulas

CTRL + SHIFT + Enter

Select array formula range

Formulas

CTRL + /

Display range names (can be used when typing formulas)

Formulas

F3

Evaluate formulas. (its easy to remember when working with some “tuf” formulas!)

Formulas

ALT + TUF

Copy a formula from above cell and edit

Formulas

CTRL + '

Display the formula palette after you type a valid function name in a formula

Formulas

CTRL + A (while writing a formula)

Alternate between displaying cell values and displaying cell formulas

Formulas

CTRL + ` (Single Left Quotation Mark)

Calculate formulas

Formulas

F9

Select all precedent cells

Formulas

CTRL + [

Select all dependent cells

Formulas

CTRL + ]

Format Selection (cells, objects, charts)

Formatting

CTRL + 1

Bold a cell’s content

Formatting

CTRL + B

Format Painter – Paste formats from selection

Formatting

ALT + EST

Format as number with 2 dp

Formatting

CTRL + SHIFT + 1

Format as local currency

Formatting

CTRL + SHIFT + 4

Format as percentage with 0 dp

Formatting

CTRL + SHIFT + 5

Hide row

Formatting

CTRL + 9

Hide column

Formatting

CTRL + 0

Unhide row

Formatting

CTRL + SHIFT + 9

Unhide column

Formatting

CTRL + SHIFT + 0

Display the style command format menu

Formatting

ALT + '

Sets/removes strikeout in current cell

Formatting

CTRL + 5

Show/hide the top bar when you have a group

Formatting

Crtl + 8

Single border around selected cells

Formatting

CTRL + SHIFT + 7

Sort

Formatting

ALT + DS

Insert hyperlink

Formatting

CTRL + K

Freeze panes

Formatting

ALT + WFF

Remove grid lines or (alt+t)ov(alt+g)[enter]

Formatting

ALT + WVG (2007+)

To wrap lines

Formatting

ALT + HW (2007+)

Save as

Excel Options

F12

Collapse the ribbon (press again to expand)

Excel Options

CTRL + F1

Opens print preview

Excel Options

CTRL + F2

Maximize the current window

Excel Options

ALT + SPACE X

Activate next window

Excel Options

ALT + TAB

Activate previous window

Excel Options

ALT + SHIFT + TAB

Close an excel workbook

Excel Options

crtl + F4

Split screens

Excel Options

ALT + W + S

Create a pivot table in new sheet (of course after selecting the range)

Everything Else

ALT + DPF

Create a pivot table in the same sheet.

Everything Else

ALT + DPN

Show visual basic editor

Everything Else

ALT + F11

Macro dialog

Everything Else

ALT + F8

Apply/remove filter

Everything Else

ALT + DFF

Keep filter on columns, but show all rows

Everything Else

ALT + DFS

Insert pivot table

Everything Else

ALT + NVT

Turn filter on or off

Everything Else

CTRL + SHIFT + L

Paste values only

Editing

ALT + ESV

Edit a cell, place cursor at the end

Editing

F2

Show in-cell drop down with previously entered values

Editing

ALT + Down arrow

Fills down value from cell above

Editing

CTRL + D

Add a comment or Edit comment

Editing

SHIFT + F2

Insert new sheet

Editing

SHIFT + F11

Insert row

Editing

CTRL + +

Delete row

Editing

CTRL + -

Copy

Editing

CTRL + C

Paste

Editing

CTRL + V

Cut

Editing

CTRL + X

Undo

Editing

CTRL + Z

Get a line break inside the cell

Editing

ALT + Enter (while editing the cell)

Clear all contents

Editing

ALT + EAA

Copy

Editing

CTRL + insert

Paste

Editing

SHIFT + Insert

Make chart/pivot chart

Editing

F11

Edit a cell in Apple Macs

Editing

CTRL + U

Copy the value from the cell above the active cell into the cell or the formula bar

Editing

CTRL + SHIFT + "

Copies whatever is in the cell to the left of it.

Editing

CTRL + R

Delete box (cell, row, column)

Editing

ALT + ED

Insert box (cell, row, column)

Editing

ALT + IE

Enter current date

Auto Complete

CTRL + ;

Enter current time

Auto Complete

CTRL + :

Thanks to the contributors

Here is a list of people who contributed these shortcuts.

Vipul, Dau, Stružák, Paul, Eliavs, Pavel S, Fabrice, Noone, Clarity, Jp, Pascal, Jair, Yoav, Nimesh, Bill, Patricia, Mike, Iesmatauw, Chrisham, Harvey, Pranav, Rohit Choudhary, Rohit1409, Rickard, Sachin, Gerald Higgins, Ericlind, Zzz, Felipe, Sridhar, Halva, Catherine, Lavkesh Bhatia, Rick Rothstein, Vishal Haria, Ak, Daniel Ferry, Mehdi Raza.

Thank you 🙂

Share your shortcuts

I know this post is unusally lengthy. But I wanted the list to be as comprehensive as possible. If you know some shortcuts that are not listed, please share them using comments. 🙂

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32 Responses to “More than 3 Conditional Formats in Excel”

  1. m&a in recessionary market says:

    Dude,

    Long time... whts up , I see that urs is the only business which is posting a "Excel" lent growth in this recessionary market....

    Still alive ... so you will be able to reach me if make an attempt... 🙂

  2. James says:

    V E R Y N I C E !!!!

  3. Lincoln says:

    Hi Chandoo.

    When I use your macro in my file, I keep getting a Compile Error because the "cell" variable is not defined.

    Any suggestions?

  4. Chandoo says:

    @Lincoln: Did you have "option explicit" on?

    I am sorry, I didn't define the cell variable.

    you can add this line to the code just below the line "dim i"
    dim cell

    Let me know if you still get this error...

  5. Lincoln says:

    Ah. I've simply declared cell as a range.
    All good now

    Noob at work.

    Thanks for the article. Very helpful. 🙂

  6. Paul says:

    very, very helpful. I didn't know what "define named ranges" meant. one of my colleagues figured it out. I suggest you add the instruction "go to menu - insert/name/define and then make sure the cells at the bottom of the box change to reflect new values if you redefine the range." thanks.

  7. Jahabar says:

    Quite Intresting. If anyone could help. I am trying to do something like this but i want to define values and colours of the value in a range of cells ( Similiar) but i want the other cells to change colour when the value is same as the range defined. ANy help. I want instantaneous( Like conditional formatting) not like running macro.

  8. Chandoo says:

    @Jahabar: Welcome to PHD and thanks for the comments.

    If your source range and target range have same dimensions and source range has 4 different formats (conditional formatting limitation, unless you are using excel 2007) you can do this. If you have more than 4 formats then you may have to use VBA (and create an event like worksheet_change and monitor the range).

    Let me know if you come across a simple non-vba solution for this. 🙂

  9. serdarb says:

    very nice post...

  10. Stružák says:

    May I suggest a little modification of the code?

    Adding "Application.ScreenUpdating = False" at the beggining of the macro and "Application.ScreenUpdating = True" at the end speeds up significantly the whole procedure. As well as omitting "Operation:=xlNone, SkipBlanks:=False, Transpose:=False".

    Not a big deal in this example, but when formatting a larger range of cells, the difference is marked. I've tried to format the number 1457 of cells and the formatting was done 11 seconds faster. :-O

  11. [...] you can overcome the conditional formatting limitation using VBA macros (again, if you are new to excel, you may want to wait few weeks before plunging in to [...]

  12. Hi Chandoo

    Thanks for this macro. I have done few changes to this macro to suit my needs. I had removed the defined names data2use and conditions2use to ActiveWindow.RangeSelection.Address

    This way I can select the cells that require conditional formatting and then run the macro.

    Kind Regards,
    Vasanth

  13. asm says:

    Chandoo, I am using 2007. I noticed the conditional formatting options are different - and they have some built in funtictions for stop light displays, and other dashboard type elements. My question is this, I need to display more colors in the stop light than the standard 3. The World Health Org (WHO) has a Pandemic Flu alert level between 0-6, so i wanted to drive a sharepoint dashboard using excel based on 7 distinct levels. Suggestions?

    • Chandoo says:

      @ASM: very good idea. you can use font based symbols instead of excel traffic light icons to achieve this. the character "=" becomes a small circle when you change the font to "webdings". So you just need to insert a bunch of = signs and use conditional formatting to change the font color. If you need to combine numbers with symbols, then you can use 2 columns instead of one and format them accordingly. Let me know if you need some more help with this.

      Also, if possible, share with us your dashboard when it is ready.

  14. [...] Once we calculate values for all team members using the above formula, we can apply conditional formatting to make the heat map. In Excel 2007, this is one step. In earlier versions of excel, you need to specify 3 conditions to make the heatmap look hot enough or use a macro to get over the 3 conditional formats limitation. [...]

  15. Pitichat says:

    Chandoo,

    Why do you use the "conditions2use" since you can change the VBA and replace "conditions2use" with "data2use" and you won't have to create a zone for conditional formating equal to the data zone.

    The Data will be formated according the "formats2use". Just one thing, if you plan to have some "0" on your data zone, they will be formated like the first cell above your "formats2use" (the green cell with "Formats" inside in your exemple".
    That's why you should leave a white empty cell above the first cell of the "formats2use" zone.

    Regards,
    Pitichat

  16. Justin B says:

    Seeing as no one has posted what they actually might use something like this for here's my 2cents;
    I used the same concepts to build a heatmap of a casino gaming floor, with each populated cell representing a gaming machine (Slot Machine), some simple metric bucketing to determine different shades for the cells, user selectable colours, ability to pick a 'machine' (click on a cell) and repaint the 'floor' showing only machines with similar charateristics, select a value range and repaint the 'floor' showing only the 'machines' within the value range. Users could switch between metrics and repaint the the floor.

    It took a while to put together, but once in use was rolled out to four casinos and used for 4 years. It provided a portable (i.e. no custom software), easy to understand way to manage product from individual machine to groups / classes of product and made it very easy to see how products were performing in geographic relation to each other (something that tables & graphs can't easily do)
    Needless to say it "wowed" many people who only saw Excel as a tool for managing numbers and table based reports
    Being excel just about any user could maintain spreadsheet.

  17. Paul Chapple says:

    @ Justin B - Hey Justin, that counds AWESOME! Can I get a copy of the casino tracker, I work within a similar industry and would love to see how you've constructed it.

    Also, from using this heatmap, I think I'm getting confused. To make the map change color, I thought you had to change the DATA2USE cells, but I see it only changes if you change the vales of thew cells within the CONDITIONS2USE cells. Am I thinking this wrong?????

    Thanks all, this is REALLY making my life easier!!

  18. Rajeev says:

    Hi Dude,

    Thanks for this very useful macro. That was very helpful.

    Kepp up the good work.

    Cheers.

  19. Wagner says:

    Explanation like yours is so important to everyone that want to learn more and more in Excel. Thanks a lot. You are the man ! 🙂

  20. Lee says:

    Chandoo,

    If I wanted to replace the numbers 1-9 with text A-I, what would I need to do to the macro to make it work correctly?

    Thanks!

    • Hui... says:

      @Lee
      If the numbers are alone and not part of larger numbers >10 or with text you can simply use this formula
      =CHAR(A1+64)
      Change A1 to your cell
      Copy Down/Across as required
      Then select the new cells and copy/paste as Values over themselves.

  21. Cathy says:

    I'm trying to do a drop down list that will allow me to select a color and when I select that color it will change my cell to that color. i cannot use contion formating because I have 5 colors. Can you help me with this?
    thanks

  22. Anurag says:

    This tool was great. Can you please suggest a way to include conditions like if value in a cell lies in a range color some other cell red.

  23. CCC says:

    What do I need to change in the programing if I have a mix of numbers and letters.  Example; 5003, 2B01, W005, 1020.  I think the problem is the CInt code but I'm not sure.

  24. Bob says:

    EXCELlent - was able to use your macro with no problems.  Found that modifying it to use the DATA2USE range achived the same result as using the condition2use range.  If the two ranges were equal, your way allows the data range to have completely different values and still have the same color format at the end. 
     
    My data is a little different
    I have an irregular shaped building with students in it.
    I have a list of students assigned to the rooms with the courses they are on
    and a color code for the courses
    would there be a way of using indirect to translate the student names to color code the rooms to what courses they are on?
     

  25. [...] hi Check below link More than 3 Conditional Formats in Microsoft Excel - How to? | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel O... [...]

  26. Graham Hartell says:

    The ability to conditional format a range of cells based on criteria in a different, but matching for size, range of cells is exactly what I've been looking for. Unfortunately the macro falls over at the line conditions (i) = CInt (cell.value). I have specified the 3 rangenames, working in excel 2003 but cannot get it to work. Any ideas. I've checked rangenames several times (0-16 being used) but no luck. Thanks

  27. Sebastian says:

    Hello you also can use this code to force ur worksheet to run with more then on condition.
    in this case the condition = case like in example if u want to format something between of the range 0 to 100 for a color
    Set I = Intersect(Target, Range("B2:B8")) <-- thatch the rage u want to work with just set it up for range of cell u want to use to format

    the second formula will show u Interior color nr index just time it and when u format the cell with a color it will show nr in the cell

    enjoy

    Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
    Set I = Intersect(Target, Range("B2:B8"))
    If Not I Is Nothing Then
    Select Case Target
    Case 0 To 100: NewColor = 37 ' light blue
    Case 101 To 200: NewColor = 46 ' orange
    Case 201 To 300: NewColor = 12 ' dark yellow
    Case 301 To 400: NewColor = 10 ' green
    Case 401 To 600: NewColor = 3 ' red
    Case 601 To 1000: NewColor = 20 ' lighter blue
    End Select
    Target.Interior.ColorIndex = NewColor
    End If
    End Sub

    Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
    Range("F1:F1") = Range("F1:F1").Interior.ColorIndex
    End Sub

  28. Tom says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    I tried to add the "More than 3 conditional formats for Excel" VBA macro
    to my Excel 2008 for Mac and it didn't work. Would this VBA macro work
    with Excel 2011 for Mac? Does it have to be a certain version: Student,
    Home & Office, or Standard?

    Thanks for your help.
    Tom

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