Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Three Ways to Create Excel Shortcuts”.
In this excel video, i will show you three different ways of creating your own keyboard shortcuts in microsoft excel. Let’S get started here. We have a spreadsheet that tracks employees of a business, and if this is a spreadsheet that i’m going to be using a lot, it really could save me a lot of time and effort to create some basic shortcuts to help me with this data. The first method, i’m going to show you for creating your own keyboard shortcuts, is to use the quick access toolbar here it is at the top of my screen.
Some people have it show up here, but if you’re not familiar with this quick access, toolbar, all you need to do is go up here. Look for this button here and click it. If you don’t see it, you can also just right click up here in the quick access toolbar.
So again you can either click here and then choose more commands to get to this screen or you can right click here in the quick access toolbar and choose customize. The ribbon either way you’re going to want to make your way to this option here: quick access, toolbar and what this is is it’s a list of actions and options that you might select in microsoft excel, and these are just the popular commands. But as you can see, you can also look for all commands and it gives you many more options or you could choose other options like print options, review options, smartart tools, pivot, table tools and then just select the type of commands that you want to see and Then you can browse through the list of actual commands, so i’m just going to go back and select popular commands and let’s say i want to have a keyboard shortcut that will help me delete sheet columns.
So this one here i just select, it click add, and now it’s going to be added to my quick access, toolbar up here at the top, while i’m at it, i think i’ll also add delete sheet columns. I think i’ll also add delete sheet rows. So i’ll click add – and i think i’ll add shapes so now – that i’ve added a few different commands to my quick access, toolbar i’ll click.
Ok, and now you can see the quick access toolbar has these three additional options. Now you might be wondering: well, these aren’t keyboard shortcuts. These are quick access buttons and that’s true. If i ever need to do any of these things, i can just go up here, and those three commands or options will always be accessible to me.
But one side benefit of adding things to the quick access toolbar is excel, assigns a keyboard shortcut to that command. The only problem is, how do i know what the assigned keyboard shortcut is? Well, the trick, is you just hold the alt key on the keyboard and it shows you what the keyboard shortcut is so alt 9 should delete the column. Alt 09 should delete the row. Let’S try it so here i am in column g and i don’t have to select the whole column in this case.
Just be clicked anywhere in column, g i’ll, hold, alt, tap. Nine that column is gone. Let’S say i don’t need this column alt nine, it’s gone! So i have effectively created a keyboard shortcut just by adding a command, that’s important to me to the quick access toolbar. What about deleting a row? I would just hold alt and then quickly tap 09 and that row is gone.
I can do it again. The next row is gone. What if i want to quickly insert a shape into my spreadsheet, hold alt zero, eight and then i could use the arrow keys to choose the shape that i want to insert tap enter, and i have my triangle so spend a little time in this area. Here. Just click on this symbol go to more commands and browse through the collections of commands that you have here. Look through it and find the options that you would like to have a keyboard shortcut for maybe insert picture click, add click, ok and then just hold that alt key and you’ll be able to see what the keyboard shortcut is now make sure you watch through the End of this video, because i’m going to show you two more ways to create your own keyboard shortcuts and the last one is in some ways the most powerful.
Let’S jump now, though, to a second way to create a keyboard shortcut, and this is a little bit different type of keyboard shortcut when using the spreadsheet. What if i find myself having to type in my name on a regular basis, maybe i’m the assistant regional manager, and i need to sign off on this data and type in my name. If i’m doing that over and over, i might as well create basically a keyboard shortcut to help me with that.
To do this, i just click on file and go down to options. If you don’t see options in the list, you may have to click more and then options and then just look for the proofing tab, and here we have autocorrect options. So i’ll click that and i’m going to create a combination of keys that will result.
In my signature being put into the spreadsheet so i’ll, just type in cwr, and i want to replace that with a full name. I click. Add click. Ok, click! Ok again, let’s give it a try.
Let’S say at the end of the quarter or the pay period. I’M supposed to sign off on this data i’ll, just type cwr tap enter and the full name is put right into the spreadsheet. Now that is a little bit different type of a keyboard shortcut, but i love that i can customize what happens in excel when i type a certain keyboard combination: okay, let’s move on to our third method for creating our own excel keyboard shortcuts, and that is by Using macros what, if, as part of my job, i’m supposed to keep track of particularly good things that employees do and also maybe some things they need to work on, and i’d like to just add those items here in the spreadsheet, so that i don’t forget them. I could record a macro and turn it into a keyboard shortcut that would make this process so much easier. Let’S take a look so here in excel. I can get to macros one of two ways. I can either click view and then over here on the right. You should see macros, you can click this button and then choose to record a macro.
So that’s in many cases the easiest quickest way. The other way is to use this developer tab and then look over here where it says macros. If you don’t see the developer tab, which you probably want just click up here, go to more commands, customize the ribbon and turn on the developer tab and then just click. Ok! So now that i have the developer tab, i’m just going to click here where it says record macro i’ll, give it a name and i’ll call.
This good comment: when you’re naming your macros, you can’t have any spaces, so i don’t have any spaces there. Next, i’m going to set up a keyboard shortcut by default. It’S saying it’s a control shortcut, so control plus what maybe c for comment.
But the problem with that is ctrl c already is a keyboard shortcut in excel it’s copy and i don’t want to lose my ability to do control c. So i’m going to also hold shift and tap c so now, control shift c will be the keyboard shortcut for this new macro. Next, i have to decide where to store this macro by default. It’S probably going to say this workbook, so just in this workbook, that’s where the macro will be saved. There are some other options, and i want to show you this one at the end of this video, so keep watching it’s a powerful thing to know when you’re creating your own macro based keyboard shortcuts for now i’ll just leave it as this workbook i’ll click.
Ok and so right now, everything that i do is being recorded, so i’m going to type in name i’ll tab over i’ll type comment, i’m going to double click between h and i to give more space for that word and i’ll click and drag to highlight. That range i’m going to go to the home tab, because this is a positive comment. I’Ll represent that, with light green fill again i’ll, select the range and i’ll click here to add some borders, maybe i’ll bold name and comment now, of course, you could set this up. However, you wanted. But the point is everything that i’m doing is being recorded in this macro when i’m done, all i need to do is go here to the developer, tab click, stop, recording and i’ll just click and drag to highlight the range that i used to set up. The macro with that highlighted here on the home tab, i’m going to go to the editing group i’ll click, this button here to clear all this will clear, not just the text but also the background, color, the borders and all of that so now, next time a Customer calls to give gina pullen a compliment saying what an amazing employee she is. All i have to do is hold the ctrl key hold the shift key tap c, and this nice form appears – and i can just type in gina pullman is awesome. So that’s great.
The only problem is what, if marcelina also gets a good comment? If i do control shift c again, it just puts it in the exact same place. There’S a good reason for this. When i recorded the macro, there was a choice i didn’t make that i probably should have so again, i’m going to clear all i’ll go back to the developer, tab and anytime. You need to adjust a macro or delete a macro.
You can go to that developer. Tab, you can click on macros, here’s my good comment macro and i’ll just delete it in this case. Yes i’ll, delete it and i’ll record the macro again, but this time before clicking record macro, i’m going to click. This button use relative references instead of always having the good comment form appear in the exact same place. I want it to appear relative to the cell, that’s selected, so i want to use relative references that is now toggled on. If i want to toggle it off, i could, but in this case i need it on i’ll click.
Record macro, good comment, control, shift, c, i’ll store it in this. Workbook click. Ok, it’s now recording everything i do. I put name and comment similar to before click and drag to highlight the range back on the home tab i’ll put in the background color that i want the borders i’ll bold.
The text once again i’ll go here to the developer. Tab stop recording. So that seemed pretty similar, but this time it’s better, at least for the situation i have here in this spreadsheet now the use of the macro is relative to the part of the spreadsheet that i’ve selected all right. Let’S say: marcelina gets a good comment, maybe somewhere near her name.
I should click ctrl shift c, and this nice form appears exactly where i would want it to be. Now i can put gina’s name in there and a comment and over and over. I could just continue to hold ctrl hold shift and tap c to put this same form wherever i want it to be now a question you may be: having is: will these shortcuts carry over to the next time i use microsoft excel? Let’S take a look at that for now i’m going to save a copy of what i have so i’ll just do a save, as in my case, click save because i used macros in this spreadsheet, i’m being prompted to save this as a macro enabled file. So, to do that, i’m going to go up here where it says excel: workbook and i’ll switch it to excel macro, enabled workbook, that’s important.
If you want to be able to use macros in the future with this workbook, you need to save it this way. So i’ll click save and now i’ll x, out of excel completely excel, is closed. I’Ll click on excel again to open it up and i’m not going to open up that same workbook. In this case, i want a brand new workbook, so i’ll click new blank workbook and let’s try out my keyboard shortcuts. If there’s a column that i need to get rid of, i can just click somewhere in the column, hold alt, tap, nine and the column is removed, so method number one worked great method number one. If you recall, is adding commands to the quick access toolbar that carried over from one workbook to the next, it still works. What about typing in initials cwr tap enter that type of keyboard shortcut, where it’s doing kind of an autocorrect that also carried over from one excel workbook to another, at least on this computer. But what about my macro, if i hold ctrl hold shift and tap c notice that nothing happens. I just get a sound.
My macro is not still accessible and maybe that’s exactly what you want, but if you would like your macro keyboard shortcuts to carry over from one workbook to the next here’s what you need to do, i’m going to open up my workbook that i was working in Before notice that macros have been disabled by default, i’ll click enable content so that now the macros are enabled, and now let me show you what i needed to do if i wanted to be able to use this macro in all future workbooks that i use on My computer again, i would need to click use relative references. First then record macro in this case i’ll call it bad comment, shortcut, key control, shift b and here’s the key store macro in not this workbook, but my personal macro workbook. If i select that and click ok and then i need to record my macro something like that and then i’ll just go back to the developer. Tab stop recording, because i’m storing this macro in my personal macro workbook i can close out of this workbook. I don’t even have to save, and now, if i put in the keyboard shortcut for the macro control shift b in this case, the macro runs.
So in this article we’ve looked at three different ways that you can set up your own keyboard shortcuts in microsoft excel. I hope you’ll try each of them out and see the powerful things you can do by customizing excel in this way. Thanks for watching. I hope you found this tutorial to be helpful.
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