Excel keyboard shortcuts you can practise, not just read

Try them here

This is the same grid the exercises run on, so every keystroke below does the real thing. Click a cell, then work down the list. It ticks off as you go.

The full list

Everything below is a genuine Excel shortcut. The 16 marked works here are implemented in the grid above and can be practised on this page. The rest are Excel features this practice grid does not have, and it says so rather than pretending.

Excel shortcuts on a Mac

Fifteen of the 32 shortcuts above are written differently on a Mac, which sounds worse than it is. Eleven of those fifteen are the same keystroke with Cmd where Windows says Ctrl. Cmd+C, Cmd+V, Cmd+Z, Cmd+Arrow and so on, so if you already know the Windows form you already know the Mac one.

That leaves 4 that genuinely differ and are worth memorising separately:

• Alt + Enter→Ctrl + Option + EnterStart a new line inside the same cell. Not implemented in this grid.
• Ctrl + Y→Cmd + Shift + ZRedo what you just undid.
• Ctrl + Shift + L→Cmd + Shift + FToggle filters on a table. Not implemented in this grid. Use the Filter panel.
• Alt + =→Cmd + Shift + TAutoSum the column above. Not implemented in this grid. Write =SUM() yourself, which is the better habit anyway.

One more difference catches people out and is not a shortcut at all: on a Mac laptop the top row is brightness and volume by default, so F2 needs Fn held down with it. You can reverse that permanently in System Settings under Keyboard, with the option to use F1, F2 and the rest as standard function keys.

The Mac column in the table above lists the 15 differing forms alongside the Windows ones, so you do not have to hold two lists in your head.

Where to go next

The table above is the reference. All 32 of them, in one place, for when you need to look something up. What it does not tell you is which ones to bother with first, and that is the question most people actually arrive with.

Excel shortcuts for beginners: the 12 that actually save time cuts the list down to twelve and explains what each one is for, grouped by the four things you actually do in a spreadsheet: moving, selecting, editing and copying. About seven minutes, and it ends in the same drill as above.

The Excel paste values shortcut, and when you actually want it is about the one clipboard shortcut people get wrong in both directions, using it everywhere and freezing figures that should have stayed live, or never using it and sending someone a file full of formulas pointing at data they do not have.

If you would rather skip the reading entirely, the exercises make you move, select, edit and copy constantly, which is how the keys get into your fingers without drilling them deliberately.

Common questions