Tip of the day: My three favorite Excel shortcuts

You don’t have to be an accountant to use Excel. It’s an ideal tool for managing any kind of data that falls into a neat rows-and-columns format, including everything from simple lists to complex budget reconciliations. These are my three favorite Excel shortcuts that most people don’t know about:

1. Quick formatting Press Ctrl+1 to open the Format Cells dialog box, where you can change the way Excel displays text or numbers in a single cell or a range of cells. Even if you normally never use keyboard shortcuts, you should learn this one, which is universal and can save you a startling number of mouse clicks.
2. Easy fractions Did you know you can enter a fraction in Excel? Normally, if you enter a numeric value that includes a forward slash, Excel converts it to a date or leaves it formatted as text. So, if you enter 3/8, Excel displays 8-Mar in the cell and stores the call’s value as the most recent occurrence of that date – in this case, 3/8/2005. If you enter 13/64, Excel just stores your entry as text, and you’re unable to use it in calculations. The secret for entering a fraction is to preface it with a zero. If you enter 0 3/8 in the cell, Excel drops the leading zero and displays the result in the cell as a fraction while storing its decimal equivalent, 0.375, as I’ve shown here.

   

   If you enter a compound fraction that includes a whole number followed by a space and a fraction, Excel does the same. So 12 3/8 displays in the cell exactly as you enter it but becomes 12.375 in your worksheet. In either case, you can now use the entered value as part of any mathematical calculation.

3. Instant zoom Use your mouse wheel to zoom in and out of your worksheet. Hold down the Ctrl key and spin the wheel down to zoom out; spin the wheel up to zoom back in. This shortcut has the same effect as using the Zoom control on the Standard toolbar or on the View menu. You can shrink the worksheet to as small as 10% of its actual size (good for getting a bird’s-eye view of the structure of a very large sheet, but lousy for editing) or up to 400% of actual size.

If you like these tips, you’ll find more just like them in Special Edition Using Microsoft Office 2003 and Special Edition Using Microsoft Office XP.