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














11 Responses to “Fix Incorrect Percentages with this Paste-Special Trick”
I've just taught yesterday to a colleague of mine how to convert amounts in local currency into another by pasting special the ROE.
great thing to know !!!
Chandoo - this is such a great trick and helps save time. If you don't use this shortcut, you have to take can create a formula where =(ref cell /100), copy that all the way down, covert it to a percentage and then copy/paste values to the original column. This does it all much faster. Nice job!
I was just asking peers yesterday if anyone know if an easy way to do this, I've been editing each cell and adding a % manually vs setting the cell to Percentage for months and just finally reached my wits end. What perfect timing! Thanks, great tip!
If it's just appearance you care about, another alternative is to use this custom number format:
0"%"
By adding the percent sign in quotes, it gets treated as text and won't do what you warned about here: "You can not just format the cells to % format either, excel shows 23 as 2300% then."
Dear Jon S. You are the reason I love the internet. 3 year old comments making my life easier.
Thank you.
Here is a quicker protocol.
Enter 10000% into the extra cell, copy this cell, select the range you need to convert to percentages, and use paste special > divide. Since the Paste > All option is selected, it not only divides by 10000% (i.e. 100), it also applies the % format to the cells being pasted on.
@Martin: That is another very good use of Divide / Multiply operations.
@Tony, @Jody: Thank you 🙂
@Jon S: Good one...
@Jon... now why didnt I think of that.. Excellent
Thank You so much. it is really helped me.
Big help...Thanks
Thanks. That really saved me a lot of time!
Is Show Formulas is turned on in the Formula Ribbon, it will stay in decimal form until that is turned off. Drove me batty for an hour until I just figured it out.