Productivity Cheat Sheet 3: Excel - 2

It may sound like a fact from “Ripley’s Believe It or Not”, but spreadsheets have been used by math minded mammals for hundreds of years. Of course, the first electronic spreadsheet as we know it, was the invention of a Harvard Business School student named Daniel Bricklin in 1978. Bricklin and Bob Frankston co-created a spreadsheet program called VisiCalc—which became the first killer app on PCs.

Nearly three decades and several program avatars later, we provide a reference sheet to help you become master and commander of Excel spreadsheeting shortcuts:

Ctrl + `: Alternates between displaying cell values and displaying formulas in worksheet
Ctrl + ': Copies formula from cell above active cell into cell or Formula Bar
Ctrl + ": Copies value from cell above active cell into cell or Formula Bar
Ctrl + +: Displays Insert dialog box to insert blank cells
Ctrl + 1: Displays Format Cells dialog box
Ctrl + 2: Applies/removes bold formatting
Ctrl + 3 or Ctrl + I: Applies/removes italic formatting
Ctrl + 4 or Ctrl + U: Applies/removes underlining
Ctrl + 5: Applies/removes strikethrough
Ctrl + 6: Alternates between hiding objects, displaying objects, and displaying placeholders for objects
Ctrl + 7: Displays/hides Standard toolbar
Ctrl + 8: Displays/hides outline symbols
Ctrl + 9: Hides selected rows
Ctrl + 0: Hides selected columns
Ctrl + A: Selects entire worksheet
Ctrl + C and another Ctrl + C: Displays Microsoft Office Clipboard
Ctrl + G or F5: Displays Go To dialog box
Ctrl + K: Displays Insert Hyperlink dialog box for new hyperlinks or Edit Hyperlink dialog box for selected existing hyperlinks
Ctrl + L: Displays Create List dialog box
Ctrl + Shift + O: Selects all cells that contain comments
Ctrl + R: Uses Fill Right command to copy contents and format of left most cell of selected range into cells to right
Ctrl + N: Creates new, blank file
Ctrl + O: Displays Open dialog box to open or find a file
Ctrl + P: Displays Print dialog box
Ctrl + W: Closes the selected workbook window
Ctrl + Y: Repeats the last command or action, if possible
Ctrl + Z: Uses Undo command to reverse last command or to delete last entry
Ctrl + Shift + Z: Uses Undo or Redo command to reverse or restore last automatic correction when AutoCorrect Smart Tags are displayed