A List of Useful Microsoft Office Cheats & Shortcuts

Learning how to use Microsoft Office is fun, especially if you become familiar with the shortcuts of its programs. Here is a comprehensive list of Microsoft Office shortcuts that you may use as a cheat sheet for your projects. Enjoy learning!

Microsoft Excel

The following functions apply to version 97/98/2000 of Excel:

• Save As allows you to save files into older versions
• Format Cell provides you the option to format your text, including Text Wrapping under the Alignment Tab
• Paste Special lets you paste the formatting of the cell you copied but not the data
• Double-clicking the edge of any row or column allows you resize it so your data will fit
• Double-clicking a cell gets you in cell edit mode so you can make changes in your data
• Insert Row/Column provides you the option to insert a new row/column above or to the left of an existing row/column
• Freeze Panes lets you freeze everything above and to the left of the cell you selected which is very useful when you’re working on a large spreadsheet

Now here are some shortcuts for Microsoft Excel that can be beneficial to you; some of which also work in Microsoft Word:

Documents

• F1 (Help)
• Ctrl+O (Open)
• Ctrl+N (New)
• Ctrl+S (Save)
• Ctrl+P (Print)
• Ctrl+F (Search)
• Ctrl+H (Replace)
• Ctrl+Home (First Word or Cell)
• Ctrl+End (Last Word or Cell)
• F7 (Spellcheck)

Selection

• Ctrl+X (Cut)
• Ctrl+C (Copy )
• Ctrl+V (Paste)
• Ctrl+A (All)
• Ctrl+Space (Select Column)
• Alt+= (Sum)

Editing and Formatting

• F2 (Edit Cell)
• Ctrl+B (Bold)
• Ctrl+I (Italic)
• Ctrl+U (Underline)
• F4 (Repeat Action)
• Ctrl+1 (Format Cell)
• Ctrl+Shift+F (Font)

Useful Functions

• today() (Today’s date)
• now() (Date and time)
• sum() (Total of values)
• average() (Average of values)
• max() (Highest value)
• min() (Lowest value)
• sqrt() (Square root)

Microsoft Word

Documents

• F12 (Save As)
• Ctrl+F2 (Print Preview)
• Ctrl+P (Print)
• F7 (Spelling and grammar)
• Ctrl+H (Replace)
• Ctrl+G (Go to)

Text Style

• Ctrl+Shift+P (Font size)
• Ctrl+Shift+D (Double underline)
• Ctrl+Shift+W (Word underline)
• Shift+F3 (Change case)
• Ctrl+K (Make web hyperlink)

Formatting

• Ctrl+L (Left alignment)
• Ctrl+E (Center alignment)
• Ctrl+R (Right alignment)
• Ctrl+J (Justified)
• Ctrl+M (Indent)

Tables

• Tab (Go to next cell)
• Shift+Tab (Go to previous cell)
• ALT+PageUp (Go to beginning of column
• ALT+PageDown (Go to end of column
• ALT+End (Go to end of row)

Miscellaneous

• ALT+Ctrl+C (Copyright symbol)
• ALT+Shift+D (Date field)
• Shift+7 (Thesaurus)
• ALT+Ctrl+F (Go to footnotes)

To print a list of all Microsoft Word commands and functions, perform the following steps.

• Select Tools|Macro|Macros from the menu bar.
• From the Macros In drop-down menu, select Word Commands.
• Select Listcommands from the macro listing.
• Click the Run button.
• Choose Current Menu & Keyboard Settings from the popup window, and click OK.
• Microsoft Word will provide you a new document that lists all the keystrokes for the program. Print it and start experiencing the power of Word.

Microsoft Outlook

• F9 (Check for mail)
• Alt+S (Save, Close, and Send)
• Ctrl+R (Reply)
• ALT+L (Reply All)
• Ctrl+Shift+B (Address book)
• ALT+Tab (Switch Between Applications)

These are just a few of the shortcuts and commands available for Microsoft Office. This is definitely not the complete list, but it should suffice for your regular projects. Spending a little time to learn these tricks will help you become a more proficient Microsoft Office user – the Office expert in your company!

James is a full time in-house writer who works for a leading specialist supplier of ink cartridges based in the UK. If you want to read more of his articles, visit their blog.