Last Updated on April 20, 2020


I don’t know how many Microsoft Excel users take advantage of all its features or even know such features exist. Probably very few ones. Although I have used this software a lot, for many years, I still discover new things everyday.

I put together here a list of shortcuts which proved very useful to me, especially when my projects required more time than I had available. I saved plenty of time working mostly from the keyboard, instead of wandering with the mouse all over the place. If you find it useful, feel free to use it and give me a big smile!

Ctrl + S = save
Ctrl + W = save and exit
Ctrl + Q = exit without saving
Ctrl + O = open file
Ctrl + N = opens a new document
Ctrl + P = print
Ctrl + F = find
Ctrl + H = replace
Ctrl + Z = undo
Ctrl + Y = redo
Ctrl + U = underline the content of the selected cell
Ctrl + B = bold the content of the selected cell
Ctrl + I = italicize the content of the selected cell
Ctrl + A = selects an area which includes all non-blank cells neighbouring the current one
Ctrl + A pressed when the current cell neighbours only with blank cells = select all
Ctrl + C = copy
Ctrl + V = paste (if you press ENTER after the copy of cut commands, is has the same effect)
Ctrl + X = cut
Ctrl + ‘ or Ctrl + D = copy the content of cell above into the current cell
Ctrl + ; = inserts the current date into the current cell
Ctrl + Shift + ; = inserts the time into the current cell
Double click on the edge of a cell within a table = moves the cursor in that direction to the first non blank cell.
F2 = enter the editing mode, with the cursor at the end of the content
Home, pressed in Editing mode = moves cursor at the beginning of the content
Ctrl + PageDown = goes to the next worksheet
Ctrl + PageUp = goes to the previous worksheet
Ctrl + L = creates a list from the data in range
Ctrl + K = insert hyperlink
Ctrl + 1 = opens the format cells dialog box
Ctrl + 7 = toggles off/on the icons menu
Ctrl + 9 = hide current row
Ctrl + 0 = hide current column
Alt + F4 = quit
Shift + right arrow = selects cells to right of the current one
Shift + left arrow = selects cells to right of the current one

If you are interested in more resources, you can find some great ones here.