Top 20 Excel Shortcuts to Boost Your Productivity

Excel keyboard shortcuts can save you hours of work by reducing repetitive mouse clicks and helping you move faster through spreadsheets. Whether you’re cleaning data, building formulas, or analyzing reports, mastering a small set of shortcuts can dramatically improve your efficiency.

This guide covers the top Excel shortcuts that deliver the biggest productivity gains, especially for everyday work.

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Why Excel Shortcuts Matter

Using shortcuts helps you:

• Work faster with fewer interruptions
• Reduce repetitive strain from mouse use
• Stay focused while editing formulas and data
• Navigate large spreadsheets efficiently

You don’t need to memorize everything — learning the most impactful shortcuts is enough.

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Top 20 Excel Shortcuts You Should Know

1. Select the Entire Column or Row

• Select column: Ctrl + Space
• Select row: Shift + Space

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2. Select All Data

• Ctrl + A
  Selects the current data region or entire worksheet.

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3. Copy and Paste

• Copy: Ctrl + C
• Paste: Ctrl + V

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4. Paste Values

• Ctrl + Alt + V, then V
  Essential for removing formulas while keeping results.

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5. Undo and Redo

• Undo: Ctrl + Z
• Redo: Ctrl + Y

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6. Insert or Delete Rows and Columns

• Insert: Ctrl + Shift + +
• Delete: Ctrl + -

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7. Edit the Active Cell

• F2
  Lets you edit a formula directly in the cell.

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8. Fill Down or Fill Right

• Fill down: Ctrl + D
• Fill right: Ctrl + R

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9. Jump to the Edge of Data

• Ctrl + Arrow Key
  Moves instantly to the last populated cell in a direction.

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10. Find and Replace

• Find: Ctrl + F
• Replace: Ctrl + H

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11. Insert Today’s Date or Current Time

• Date: Ctrl + ;
• Time: Ctrl + Shift + ;

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12. Open Format Cells

• Ctrl + 1
  Access number formatting, alignment, borders, and more.

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13. Toggle Absolute References

• F4
  Cycles through $A$1, A$1, $A1, and A1.

This is especially useful when building lookup formulas like VLOOKUP or INDEX MATCH.

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14. Create a Table

• Ctrl + T
  Turns a data range into an Excel Table for easier analysis.

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15. AutoSum

• Alt + =
  Automatically inserts a SUM formula.

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16. Insert a Chart

• Alt + F1
  Creates a default chart from selected data.

Charts created this way are often the first step toward dashboards:
Excel Dashboards: A Step-by-Step Guide

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17. Show or Hide Formulas

• Ctrl + ~
  Displays all formulas instead of results.

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18. Insert a New Worksheet

• Shift + F11

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19. Close Excel

• Alt + F4

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20. Save Your Workbook

• Ctrl + S
  It sounds obvious, but it’s one of the most important shortcuts you’ll ever use.

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Shortcuts That Pair Well with Advanced Features

Keyboard shortcuts become even more powerful when combined with:

• How to Use PivotTables in Excel (Step-by-Step)
• Mastering VLOOKUP in Microsoft Excel
• VLOOKUP vs INDEX MATCH (Which Is Better?)

Using shortcuts alongside these tools can cut analysis time dramatically.

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Final Thoughts

You don’t need to memorize every Excel shortcut to be productive. Start with the ones you use daily, then gradually add more as they become second nature.

Even learning five to ten shortcuts from this list can noticeably speed up your Excel workflow and reduce frustration.