5 important navigation shortcuts in MS Excel

Shortcuts make the work on MS Excel a lot easier. You may have noticed, as you shuffle lesser between mouse and keyboard, your speed of work grows manifold. Navigation within a sheet or between different worksheets, Excel files and other applications is a part of our daily working and so the navigation keys have a huge role to play in optimizing our efficiency. In the table we have highlighted 5 very important navigation shortcuts. 

Let's go through these shortcuts in brief and understand with the help of examples. 

1. ALT + Tab / Windows Logo + Tab - This shortcut allows switching between different open applications on your system. Kindly note that Windows logo can be used for switching only in Windows 7 and above. 

2. CTRL + Tab - With few clicks you can navigate between the multiple open excel files using this shortcut. 

3. CTRL + Page up/Page Down - Similarly you can easily move between different sheets of the same workbook through this shortcut. 

4. Ctrl + Arrow keys - This shortcut allows you to go to the next filled cell/last cell in the row or column. With just the arrow keys & CTRL, you can navigate across the entire worksheet that has over 16,000 columns and a million rows, as shown below. 

5. ALT + F4 - The day has ended and it is time to turn your machine off. There is no need to close all the open Excel files individually. This shortcut will close the application along with the files. 

So next time, don’t touch the mouse when you have to navigate, save a bit of time, reach home earlier and give a pleasant surprise to your family!

Our next article will be addressing the data selection issues in Excel and the shortcuts to tackle them. Keep visiting this page for the latest articles.