The most useful Excel shortcuts will help you work a lot faster and make your life easier, which is what Rockstar Excel is all about.
In this video, I walk you through the 16 most useful Excel shortcuts. Some of these are keyboard shortcuts, and some of these are tools Excel makes available to you.
Most Useful Excel Shortcuts – Keyboard Shortcuts
Ctrl-A: Select all
Hit Ctrl-A once to select only the section of data you’ve clicked on, and twice to select the entire sheet.
Ctrl-C: Copy
Ctrl-X: Cut
Ctrl-V: Paste
After using Ctrl-C to copy or Ctrl-X to cut, you’ll likely want to use Ctrl-V to paste.
Ctrl-Z: Undo
Very useful if you make a mistake.
Ctrl-F: Find
Find is useful if you have a large/complex spreadsheet. You also use Ctrl-F as the Excel shortcut for Find and Replace.
Ctrl-D: Fill down
Copies formulas or hard-coded values down on your highlighted cells.
Ctrl-R: Fill right
The same as Ctrl-D, only copying right across your highlighted cells.
To learn more on how filling makes complex and powerful spreadsheets extremely easy to build, check out Rockstar Excel’s Excel Made Easy class. This class typically runs every other month. If there isn’t a class currently open for registration, be sure to sign up for our newsletter to be notified when the next class opens.
F2: Highlights the cells a formula refers to
F2 also color codes the formula and cells the formula references, making it easier to understand what your formula is doing.
F4: Switch from relative to absolute references
Hit F4:
- Once for an absolute reference.
- Twice for a mixed reference with an absolute row and relative column.
- Three times for a mixed reference with a relative row and absolute column.
- Four times to change back to a normal, relative reference.
If you are unfamiliar with relative, absolute, and mixed references, this extremely powerful tool is explained in my Excel Made Easy class.
Paste Value
There are multiple Excel shortcuts for Paste Value:
This quickest is Menu-V. But not all keyboards have a menu button. If yours does, it will likely be to the right of the space bar and look like this.
If you don’t have a menu button, another shortcut is Ctrl-Alt-V, then V, then Enter. However, you may find it awkward to hit Ctrl, Alt, and V at the same time.
Another alternative is Alt, then H, then V, then V again.
Or right-click, and in the menu that pops up select the clipboard with the 123 on it, which will be under the Paste Options section.
Finally, there’s the long way. That’s to right-click, then select Paste Special. Then Values. Then click OK or hit Enter.
Most Useful Excel Shortcuts – Mouse Shortcuts
Sum button
The Sum button is the sigma, or weird E if you don’t know your Greek alphabet. It’s toward the right of the Home ribbon.
Pressing it will make Excel add up the numbers above or to the left of the cell you’ve selected.
Drag a cell by its border to move it
When you click on a cell, a green border appears around it. You can then click and drag that green border to move the cell to another location on the spreadsheet.
When you do this, any formulas that reference the cell will automatically update with the cell’s new location.
Double-click the green box to fill down
When you click a cell, a small green box appears in the lower right corner. The official term for this is the fill handle, but I just call it the green box.
If you double-click this green box, it will fill down, just like with Ctrl-D. Except you don’t have to select the range you’re filling.
Excel will fill down for as far as there are continuous cells with data in the column to the left of where you’re double-clicking.
Drag green box to fill down or right (or up or left)
If you select one cell, then click and drag the green box (or fill handle), Excel will fill down/right over the range you’ve selected. Just like with Ctrl-D or Ctrl-R.
You can also do this to fill up or left, which you can’t do with keyboard shortcuts.
Drag green box to continue pattern
If you select multiple cells, then click and drag the green box (or fill handle), Excel will try to find a pattern in your selection, and then continue that pattern.
For example, if you type 1 in cell A3, 2 in cell A4, then highlight those cells and drag the green box down, Excel will put a 3 in cell A5, 4 in cell A6, etc.
You can also do this with dates and other common patterns. You can put “Mon,” and “Tue,” and drag to have Excel complete the days of the week. Or “Jan” and “Feb,” then drag to complete the rest of the months.
What do you think are the most useful Excel shortcuts?
This is my opinion on the most useful Excel shortcuts.
Do you agree?
Are there any I missed?
Do you have a better way of doing things that you prefer to any of the shortcuts I listed?
Sound off in the comments, either here or on the YouTube video.
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