10 Excel Shortcuts That Will Make You Look Like a Wizard

When I published the post about the top 10 Excel formulas, I had no idea how much people would respond to that. TONS of people have asked for videos, so being the man of the people that I am, I’m going to deliver on that….but not today.

Today is about Excel shortcuts.

When I went to my first internship many years ago, I remember one of the finance managers telling me there’s no reason to ever touch the mouse when using Excel. I work with someone today who I’ve heard say the same almost verbatim. I guess some things never change.

Never might be a bit strong, but here are 10 ways to bypass the mouse to get results faster in Excel.

1. ALT, D, F, F

Highlight the header row of the table in question, enter ALT, D, F, F and voila – you can quickly toggle data filters on/off.

2. ALT, D, F, S

You ever find yourself in a massive spreadsheet with filtered rows but you can’t figure out where the filter is? This Excel shortcut clears data filter criteria but keeps the filters on the dataset.

3. CTRL + (-)

Enter this command when your cursor is anywhere in the spreadsheet and you get the delete menu, offering four options : 1) Shift cells left 2) shift cells up 3) entire row 4) entire column.

4. CTRL + R

Instead of copying and pasting or dragging for all eternity when you want a formula to fill to the right, highlight the range where you want the formula repeated (beginning with the cell with the formula in it) and key CTRL + R.

5. CTRL + D

You can also key in CTRL + D if you want a formula to fill down. It works exactly like CTRL + R, just going vertically instead of horizontally.

How to get the other 5 formulas

I’ll send you the other half of my top ten list and a printable PDF version for you when you set up a free account here. It’s 100% free and I have many other tips and tricks to share so you can spend more time optimizing your spreadsheets and less time on Google searching for what you don’t know.

To more efficient spreadsheeting!