Refresher: We’ve set up a basic spreadsheet (available for download here) in part 1 where we covered setting up a spreadsheet for analysis.
For the next 2 editions, we will put the spreadsheet down for a bit before picking them up as I find more time and bandwidth (I’m getting married in 3 days). As a result, today’s post will be about excel shortcuts.
There are an important principles that I use when working with Excel and PowerPoint -With Excel, you want to minimize use of the mouse and become a keyboard ninja and with PowerPoint, you want to do the opposite. We will cover mouse related to dos in a post on recommended quick access bars for Excel and PowerPoint. Today’s post is about keyboard shortcuts.
The following 11 shortcuts are those I’ve used the most and those I’ll recommend you learn. I’m assuming you are well versed with the basic ones like ctrl+s/c/v, etc., to save, copy, and paste.
1. Ctrl+Up/Down/Left/Right: Move to the end of a row, column.
2. Ctrl+Shift+Up/Down/Left/Right: Select till the end of a row, column.
3. Shift+Space/Ctrl+Space: Select a row/column
4. Shift+”-“/Ctrl+”-“: Delete row/column
5. Ctrl+Shift+”+”: Shift rows/columns up, down, left, right
6. Ctrl+Shift+$/%: Format numbers in $, %
7. Alt+E+S and “down” twice: Paste as values – invaluable when working with multiple pivots (Alt+E+S brings forth the paste menu)
8. F4: Absolute and relative referencing – as critical as they get
9. F2: Toggle in and out of formulas from text editing to moving the selected box
10. Ctrl+Shift+>/<: Increase or decrease font – more relevant for PowerPoint than Excel
11. Ctrl+D: Populate i.e. use it to populate an entire column based on the first value
The point to remember here is that it’s impossible to be efficient with your time on Excel without working with shortcuts. So, if you’re planning on significant work on excel – crunching data, building models, analysing surveys, etc., I would highly recommend you spend some time getting fully on board with shortcuts. As an added resource, do check out Chandoo’s post on 10 must-have shortcuts.
As these are off the top of my head now, I might come back and add a few. If you have any shortcuts that you use a lot and feel I’m missing, I look forward to those in the comments.
A Learning a Day 