Windows XP and Office 2003 Keyboard Shortcuts

Unless your workbooks consist of a single worksheet with only a few cells on it, you ll spend a fair amount of time navigating your worksheets in Excel. Keyboard shortcuts can save you a large amount of scrolling and clicking with the mouse.

Shortcuts for Navigating in Worksheets

[ ] , [ ’ ] , [ ‘ ] , [ “ ]

Move the active cell up or down one row, or left or right one column

Use the arrow keys for basic navigation. For example, press ’ to move the active cell highlight to the cell to the right of the current active cell. Hold down the arrow key to move through multiple cells.

Insert a new worksheet in the active workbook

[Shift] - [F11] , [Alt] - [Shift] - [F1]

These keyboard shortcuts make Excel insert a new default worksheet.

Move to the next worksheet

[Ctrl] - [PageDown]

Move to the previous worksheet

[Ctrl] - [PageUp]

Select the current worksheet and the next worksheet

[Ctrl] - [Shift] - [PageDown]

Select the current worksheet and the previous worksheet

[Ctrl] - [Shift] - [PageUp]

Move to the specified edge of the data region

[Ctrl] - [ ] , [Ctrl] - [ ’ ] , [Ctrl] - [ ‘ ] , [Ctrl] - [ “ ]

The data region is the area of the active worksheet that contains the active cell and has cells that contain data. The data region extends from the active cell to the nearest blank row above and below, and to the nearest blank column to the left and right. For example, if a worksheet contains entries from cell D8 through K23, the data region starts at cell D8 and extends to row 23 and column K. Pressing [Ctrl] - ’ moves the active cell to column K in the active row. Pressing [Ctrl] - moves the active cell to row 23 in the active column. Pressing [Ctrl] - “ returns the active cell to column D, and pressing [Ctrl] - ‘ returns the active cell to row 8.

Move to the first cell in the active row

[Home]

Use this keyboard shortcut to move the active cell from the far reaches of the worksheet to the first column. This keyboard shortcut is especially useful when you need to check row headings that are not displayed.

Move to the first cell in the worksheet

[Ctrl] - [Home]

Move to the last used cell in the worksheet

[Ctrl] - [End]

Move down one screen

[PageDown]

Move up one screen

[PageUp]

Move to the right by one screen

[Alt] - [PageDown]

Move to the left by one screen

[Alt] - [PageUp]

Scroll the workbook to display the active cell

[Ctrl] - [Backspace]

Display the Go To dialog box

[Ctrl] - [G]

The Go To dialog box (shown next) lets you quickly access the named ranges in the active worksheet. You can also press [Alt] - [S] from the Go To dialog box to display the Go To Special dialog box (shown on the right), which lets you access cells that meet specific criteria.