How to Use Excel Shortcuts to Edit Cells

By eHow Computers Editor

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When using Microsoft Excel, editing cells is one of the most common tasks people perform in this program. Utilizing the shortcut keys that are available to accomplish this task will make a person much faster and productive when working on projects that involve Excel.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

Data information
Computer
Microsoft Excel

Step1

Edit the actual text within a cell by clicking on that cell and then pressing the "F2" function key. This will immediately bring your cursor to the end of the text in that cell and you can begin your editing on the text. Another quick way to go into a cell to edit the content is by double-clicking with the left button of the mouse.

Step2

Move within a cell by using the "Home" and "End" keys. These will take you to the beginning and end of the text just as it would in Microsoft Word.

Step3

Search and replace specific data by using the 2 keys "Ctrl+F" at the same time. This will display the search box. Use "Ctrl+Z" to undo the last action.

Step4

Change or edit a comment in a cell by using the 2 keys "Shift+F2" together. For people that use comments frequently, this is much faster. Use the 3 keys "Ctrl+Shift+O" to select all the cells that have comments.

Step5

Check the spelling within a cell by using the "F7" function key. This is the same shortcut used by Microsoft Word.

Step6

Use the "Ctrl" key with the arrow keys to jump to the next cell that has data in it. This is useful shortcut in spreadsheets that have a lot of empty cells in between the data.

Step7

Put an outline border on a cell using the 3 keys "Ctrl+Shift+7" at the same time. Use "Ctrl+Shift" with the hyphen key to remove the border.

Tips & Warnings

Many of the shortcuts are the same across different Microsoft programs. If you know one shortcut in one program, do not be afraid to try the same shortcut with the same buttons in another program.