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.

Here is the complete list of excel keyboard shortcuts.
- Shortcuts for Selection
- Shortcuts for Editing
- Shortcuts for Navigation
- Shortcuts for Formatting
- Shortcuts for Formulas
- Shortcuts for Excel Options
- Shortcuts for Auto Complete
- Shortcuts for Everything Else
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
|
| Select the whole row
Selection
|
| Select table
Selection
|
| Save
Selection
|
| Select visible cells only
Selection
|
| Select entire region
Selection
|
| Select range from start cell to far left
Selection
|
| Select range from start cell to end in direction of arrow
Selection
|
| Select a continuous range of data (e.g. pivot), no matter where your cursor is.
Selection
|
| Select blank cells
Selection
|
| Select all cells with comments
Selection
|
| Select all cells that are directly or indirectly referred to by formulas in the selection
Selection
|
| Select all cells with formulas that refer directly or indirectly to the active cell
Selection
|
| Selects all the way to a1 from cursor position
Selection
|
| Select cells in the direction of arrow
Selection
|
| Previous sheet
Navigation
|
| Next sheet
Navigation
|
| Launch GO TO Dialog (from here you can select special or jump to a cell or range)
Navigation
|
| Go to top left (will go to top left of freezed pane if set)
Navigation
|
| Go to last non-blank cell
Navigation
|
| Go to previous sheet
Navigation
|
| Go to next sheet
Navigation
|
| Print
Navigation
|
| Toggle between workbooks in a given session of excel.
Navigation
|
| Change the type of cell reference from relative to absolute or semi-absolute
Formulas
|
| Repeat whatever you did last
Formulas
|
| Debug portions of a formula (select and press)
Formulas
|
| Sum range
Formulas
|
| Enter array formula
Formulas
|
| Select array formula range
Formulas
|
| Display range names (can be used when typing formulas)
Formulas
|
| Evaluate formulas. (its easy to remember when working with some “tuf” formulas!)
Formulas
|
| Copy a formula from above cell and edit
Formulas
|
| Display the formula palette after you type a valid function name in a formula
Formulas
|
| Alternate between displaying cell values and displaying cell formulas
Formulas
|
| Calculate formulas
Formulas
|
| Select all precedent cells
Formulas
|
| Select all dependent cells
Formulas
|
| Format Selection (cells, objects, charts)
Formatting
|
| Bold a cell’s content
Formatting
|
| Format Painter – Paste formats from selection
Formatting
|
| Format as number with 2 dp
Formatting
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| Format as local currency
Formatting
|
| Format as percentage with 0 dp
Formatting
|
| Hide row
Formatting
|
| Hide column
Formatting
|
| Unhide row
Formatting
|
| Unhide column
Formatting
|
| Display the style command format menu
Formatting
|
| Sets/removes strikeout in current cell
Formatting
|
| Show/hide the top bar when you have a group
Formatting
|
| Single border around selected cells
Formatting
|
| Sort
Formatting
|
| Insert hyperlink
Formatting
|
| Freeze panes
Formatting
|
| Remove grid lines or (alt+t)ov(alt+g)[enter]
Formatting
|
| To wrap lines
Formatting
|
| Save as
Excel Options
|
| Collapse the ribbon (press again to expand)
Excel Options
|
| Opens print preview
Excel Options
|
| Maximize the current window
Excel Options
|
| Activate next window
Excel Options
|
| Activate previous window
Excel Options
|
| Close an excel workbook
Excel Options
|
| Split screens
Excel Options
|
| Create a pivot table in new sheet (of course after selecting the range)
Everything Else
|
| Create a pivot table in the same sheet.
Everything Else
|
| Show visual basic editor
Everything Else
|
| Macro dialog
Everything Else
|
| Apply/remove filter
Everything Else
|
| Keep filter on columns, but show all rows
Everything Else
|
| Insert pivot table
Everything Else
|
| Turn filter on or off
Everything Else
|
| Paste values only
Editing
|
| Edit a cell, place cursor at the end
Editing
|
| Show in-cell drop down with previously entered values
Editing
|
| Fills down value from cell above
Editing
|
| Add a comment or Edit comment
Editing
|
| Insert new sheet
Editing
|
| Insert row
Editing
|
| Delete row
Editing
|
| Copy
Editing
|
| Paste
Editing
|
| Cut
Editing
|
| Undo
Editing
|
| Get a line break inside the cell
Editing
|
| Clear all contents
Editing
|
| Copy
Editing
|
| Paste
Editing
|
| Make chart/pivot chart
Editing
|
| Edit a cell in Apple Macs
Editing
|
| Copy the value from the cell above the active cell into the cell or the formula bar
Editing
|
| Copies whatever is in the cell to the left of it.
Editing
|
| Delete box (cell, row, column)
Editing
|
| Insert box (cell, row, column)
Editing
|
| Enter current date
Auto Complete
|
| Enter current time
Auto Complete
|
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. 🙂














28 Responses to “Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools using Excel [Part 2 of 6]”
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools Part 3: Preparing a project time line [upcoming] Part 4: Time sheets and Resource management [...]
the templates are great (I bought the combo).
What I'm missing is a way to have the project gantt chart and reporting with the data per resource, in such a way that I can also show the occupation per resource on an extended gantt chart.
So with hours entered per person per project or sub-activity, to show a gantt chart of how many hours/days a person spent on which project (or plans to spend).
[...] from: Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools using Excel [Part 2 of 6] 25 Jun 09 | [...]
Hi Chandoo,
Funny I have a post on the value of MS project lined up which I will post when the current monster project I'm working on finishes and I get some free time!
I'm not sure this would help with any of the projects I've worked on, closing down a to do list seems like more effort than it's worth, but it might be useful for some things. I guessing it doesn't, but does the time stamp not update when you recalculate the work book?
keep up the good work!
Ross
@Ross.. Thanks for sharing your ideas... I think to do lists are a great way to keep up with project activities and ensure accountability from individual team members, when they are implemented right.
"I guessing it doesn’t, but does the time stamp not update when you recalculate the work book?"
Your guess is right. When you change the calculation mode to "iterative", excel takes care of the nittygritties and retains older values in circular references in formulas.
[...] Project Management in Excel [New Series] - Gantt Charts | To Do Lists [...]
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools Project Status Reporting - Create a Timeline to display milestones Part 4: Time sheets and Resource [...]
Hi Chandoo,
The template give me lot of convenience to monitor the thing to do. It simple. Thank You
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools Project Status Reporting - Create a Timeline to display milestones Part 4: Time sheets and Resource [...]
[...] make sure you have read the first 4 parts of the series - Making gantt charts [project planning], team todo lists [project tracking], project time lines chart [reporting] and Timesheets and Resource Management using Excel. Also [...]
Chandoo,
I really do not see any befit to this function in Excel unless it was somehow tied into some other chart. That is say a scheduled activities % complete is based on the to-do list.
The only way this chart would be useful is if no one was assigned none dependent task that could be done by anyone. The cases were both of these conditions are true are so few and far between it really makes this chart worthless.
@Brian... Once you have a todo list up and running, it is easy to get metrics out of it. I didnt propose it as it might look a bit too micro-management-ish.
I am able to understand what you meant by "The only way this chart would be useful is if no one was assigned none dependent task that could be done by anyone. The cases were both of these conditions are true are so few and far between it really makes this chart worthless."
Can you explain?
"Chandoo"
What I mean is this. Lets say you have 10 task which are part of one activity/WBS that is in your schedule. One there are very few cases were many people would be assigned to complete this one scheduled activity with no direction being given who should what of the 10 task. It is poor management, and the task 90% of the time would not get done in a timely manner if say 4 people were responsible. Secondly, you are assuming all 10 task are independent of each other. You might need to do task 1 thru 3 before you can do task 4, and to do task 7 you might need to do 4 and 6. Thirdly, the time it would take to compile and then fill out the to-do-list even in limited applications is really not worth it.
I just see almost no applications why a team would need to inform others separate from the schedule that they have completed a task on a to-do list unless anyone of the 4 people could of completed that task.
My point is, there might be a few very limited applications for this type of list but this list would be worthless as a Project Management tool in every other case.
However, change this from a to-do-list to a document change log and it is perfect. Instead of to-do it is the documents name or summary of what changed in the document. The person is who edited the document, and the time stamp is when they checked it in. But I do not know why you would use excel when there is free software you can use commercially that is 10 times better that does document management.
I think using excel to do Project Management over a real Project Management application is a bad idea. Unless you are running a very small, simple project, the time and effort is a lot more to use excel compared to the cost of the Project Management software.
This comes back to my point, I love your site, however, just because you can do something in excel does not mean you should do it. To often the time it takes to use excel is wasted 10 times over from the cost of doing it in an application designed to for the specific application.
@Brian: The todo list mentioned here is meant to keep track of all the tasks for which detailed planning is not necessary but some sort of tracking is needed. These are not be confused with project activities (a la gantt chart).
I like your suggestion about using this as a document tracker. Pretty cool use.
Coming to your point about excel as a real project management tool, well, I have my views, but in a serious project environment, it would surely payoff to have a dedicated project management application.
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools Project Status Reporting – Create a Timeline to display milestones Time sheets and Resource [...]
Chandoo,
Wonder how the timestamp column will maintain its previous data. Both Today() and Now() functions will update as and when the next timestamp happens.
[...] Preparing & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Part2: Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools Part3: Project Status Reporting – Create a Timeline to display milestones Part4: Time sheets and [...]
I've combined this with the issue tracker since I like the automatic date stamp, but one thing I'm noticing is that I can't replicate the chart that goes along with the issue tracker because the cells that are referenced have the formula that inserts the time stamp instead of a the actual date value. All the dates of the last 30 days display 0 when they should have a value.
Is there a way around this?
I have edited the chart so that my team members can update the percentage completion of the assigned tasks. When the cell is updated, i would like the time stamp to update. How would I manipulate the formula to update whenever the drop-down list is changed?
[...] … ??? To Do List [...]
Excel is great however sometimes you need to get a better idea of what tasks each person on your team is working on at any given time. We've developed a web app that can do just that! Each person has a list of tasks, listed in the order they have to complete them.
HII,
I want to expand the database through excel where i am working on 11 cities as of now and i want to expand it upto 50 cities and hence forth the data related to it will also expand so i want to make it precise where i can get updates also that this work is required to be done at that particular day or date
Thanks for making all of this information available for free. I am currently using excel to track everything for the first time. I later plan to output our information here with a more visual presentation. Wish me luck!
Can some one point me out to some additional direction on the "Who Finished it?" column? Something more 'basic' for a newbie excel guy? lol I got everything else working on this tutorial but that column. I can't seem to recreate it and I know a lot of it is due to lack of knowledge with VB code. I'd like to recreate this column very much 🙁
Dear Chandoo,
Thanks for the team to do list, kindly let me know how to set the column who " finished it " from another work sheet
Hi Chandoo,
Unable to download it - can you please check the link and confirm.
Great inhisgt! That's the answer we've been looking for.
Hi Team,
I know u all are the best programmers in the world!!! that's I am here to rectify my issues. here is my question please ans me as soon as possible before 8-3-2017 its really urgent.
I have a project named the production tracker.
1) I require the user form which shows the names of the Associates which are linked to the different tracks. when the user is selected the particular track related details and dropdowns should appear.
2) I need to track the associate needs how much of the time to complete the particular task. with start stop and pause and resume timer.
3) It should display the daily count of the production and save the data to the another Excel file.
this production tracker should save all the data no matter how many people logs in into it.
Please help me for this it will be very appreciated.
you can directly email me on my mail ID: tusharkch694@gmail.com