Memorize these 10 Excel shortcuts to boost your productivity
Learning keyboard shortcuts and other Excel tricks can help you save time on daily tasks. (lenetstan/Shutterstock)
If you’re aiming for extreme productivity with Excel, you’ll need to ditch your mouse and keep your hands on the keyboard. That means developing a repertoire of keyboard shortcuts that can help you create, edit, and navigate your spreadsheet efficiently.
Commit these 10 time-saving tricks to memory:
- Add the current date to a cell with Ctrl + Semicolon (PC) or Control + Semicolon (Mac)
- Add the current time to a cell with Ctrl + Shift + Colon (PC) or Command + Semicolon (Mac)
- Navigate to the edge of a sheet with Ctrl + any arrow button (PC) or Command + any arrow key (Mac)
- Navigate to the first cell of a worksheet with Ctrl + Home (PC) or Fn + Control + ← (Mac)
- Navigate to the last filled cell of a worksheet with Ctrl + End (PC) or Fn + Control + → (Mac)
- Open Excel Help with F1 (PC) or Command + / (Mac)
- Check spelling with F7 (PC and Mac)
- Shift between Excel worksheets with Ctrl + PgUp or PgDn (PC) or Option + → or Option + ← (Mac)
- Open the formatting dialog box with Ctrl +1 (PC) or Command + 1
- Open the Find dialog box with Ctrl + F (PC) or Control + F (Mac)
Please note that Mac shortcuts may vary. The shortcuts described here work in Excel 2016 with a US English keyboard layout.
Learning these shortcuts and other Excel tricks can help you save time on daily tasks. But to really boost your data-management skills, you’ll need to learn Power Query, a feature that can help you automate data cleanup tasks.
DATA MANAGEMENT CERTIFICATE CAN HELP
CPA Canada’s new Data Management Certificate is a five-course online program that helps business and accounting professionals understand how to use data to produce financial insights. The first course in the certificate, Data preparation: Cleansing, modelling and dashboards, focuses on Power Query.