Excel shortcuts cheat sheet: 45 shortcuts to work twice as fast

Excel is where keyboard shortcuts pay off the most, because spreadsheet work is so repetitive. Selecting a column of 4,000 rows with the mouse means dragging and overshooting. With the keyboard it is one shortcut. This cheat sheet covers the shortcuts that remove the most clicking, with the Mac version in a separate column where it differs.

The shortcuts work in Excel for Microsoft 365, Excel 2021 and most older desktop versions. Excel on the web supports many of them too, though the browser sometimes grabs a combination first.

Move around large sheets

Ctrl + arrow is the foundation for everything else. In a column of data it jumps to the last filled cell, and from an empty area it jumps to the next block. Pressed twice in a row, it is the fastest way to check whether a column has gaps.

Select data

A typical sequence: click the header of a column, press Ctrl + Shift + Down, and the whole column of data is selected, however long it is.

Enter and fill data

Flash Fill (Ctrl + E) is the one that surprises people. Say column A has full names. Type the first name of the first person in column B, press Ctrl + E, and Excel fills in every first name below. It works for splitting emails, joining columns and reformatting phone numbers. Our Flash Fill guide has more examples and fixes for when it does not work.

Formulas

F4 while typing a formula saves you from typing dollar signs by hand. Click into a reference such as B2, press F4 once to lock it completely ($B$2), and keep pressing to cycle through the other options.

Formatting

The last row is a Windows ribbon sequence: press the keys one after another, not together. Every ribbon command has one, and pressing Alt alone shows the letters on screen.

Rows, columns and sheets

Select whole rows first (Shift + Space) and Ctrl + Shift + + inserts full rows without the dialog asking what to shift.

Tables, filters and charts

Tables are worth it even for small lists. Formulas that refer to a table grow with it, new rows get the same formatting, and the filter buttons appear automatically.

Paste Special is how you paste only the values of formulas, which matters when you send a sheet to someone else. Copy, press Ctrl + Alt + V, then V for values and Enter.

A five-minute practice routine

Open a sheet with a few hundred rows of real data, such as last month's sales or a client list, and try this without the mouse:

1. Jump to the bottom of the data with Ctrl + Down and back with Ctrl + Up.
2. Select one column with Ctrl + Space, then the whole block with Ctrl + A.
3. Turn it into a table with Ctrl + T.
4. Filter one column with Alt + Down.
5. Sum a column with Alt + =.

Do it twice more on different days and most of it sticks. If you also want help writing formulas, our guide to using AI at work shows how to ask ChatGPT or Copilot for one in plain language.

Common questions

Why does Ctrl + Shift + 0 not unhide columns?

On many Windows PCs, Ctrl + Shift is the system shortcut for switching input languages, and it swallows Ctrl + Shift + 0 before Excel sees it. Either select the columns, right-click a header and choose Unhide, or change the language-switching hotkey under Settings, Time & language, Typing, Advanced keyboard settings.

Do function keys need Fn on a laptop?

On many laptops the top row controls brightness and volume by default, so F2 becomes Fn + F2. Most laptops have an Fn Lock key, often Fn + Esc, that swaps this behaviour.

Step-by-step guides go deeper on single tasks: the Excel strikethrough shortcut, inserting and deleting rows with the keyboard and strikethrough in Google Sheets, which uses different keys from Excel.