Learn a Shortcut Save An Hour

I am serious - learn few Excel shortcuts and save tons of time. I cannot stop being surprised from heavy Excel users that keep reaching for the mouse for every simple tasks performed hundreds of times per week. With few keyboard tricks in your sleeve you would not only save time but also make it easy for your wrist and you would look like a pro in eyes of the uninitiated as a plus. There are many websites you could check for a full list of shortcuts but please find bellow some for a start.


Ctrl+s: save
Ctrl+z: undo
Ctrl+y: redo
Ctrl+arrows: navigate to ranges start/end
Ctrl+Shift+arrows: select a range  
Alt+DFF: apply/remove filter
Alt+DS: opens the sort dialog (use tab to navigate)
Ctrl+PageDown (or PageUp): go to the tab on the right/left
Ctrl+Tab:go to the next open workbok
Ctrl+ES:paste as menu - from here press the underscored letter to perform the operation, e.g. "t" for pasting the formats
Alt+Down Arrow (hold down Alt in this one!) to open combo box with filtered values when cursor is on desired header cell
Ctrl+Home: go to A1 or were the title blocks 
ALT+ENTER: force carriage return instead of wrapping text in a cell.
Ctrl+TAB: switch between workbooks 
Ctrl+ or CTRL- : insert/delete columns/rows/cells
Ctrl+1: opens format cells dialog box  
SHIFT+Spacebar: select selection row(s)
Ctrl+Spacebar: select selection column(s)
Shift+F11: inserts a sheet to the left of the current tab
Ctrl++ : inserts new cells based on selection
Ctrl+- : deletes cells based on selection
Ctrl+G (or F5): opens the GoTo window; enter an address or simply select an address from previously used ones
The shortcuts work regular and capital letter.

It is not a comprehensive list but I guess you could recognize some of the most frequently used operations in the list. A good place to look up almost all shortcuts is here.

You could find the key combination to perform virtually every action in Excel menus - press Alt and you will see letters on each sub-menu on the ribbon, select one - the sub-menu opens and letters are displayed over each option. In this way you could find, remember and use every frequently used menu option. In sub-menus you could be guided by underscored letters - access the option they indicate by directly pressing the key. Some menus this happens with combination of Alt and the underscored key. The last remark is true for Windows menus in general.