When it comes to selecting entire rows or columns, there’s only one shortcut you need to know.

In this video, I will teach you the fastest way to select rows or columns, so you can make sweeping changes to your spreadsheet efficiently AND effortlessly.

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You know when you’re on your spreadsheet and you’re really in the zone, and the mood is right and you’re just kind of grooving, but then you have to take your hands off of the keyboard and use the mouse to select the whole row or whole column? Well, nothing kills the mood faster. In my book, at least.

But in today’s video, I’m going to teach you how to use just the keyboard to select an entire row or entire column.

Sure, you can select the entire column by going to the column letter and then clicking, or the entire row by going to the row number and then clicking. But, why would you do that if you can use the keyboard, right?

All you have to do is hit SHIFT + SPACE and you’ll get the entire row selected. If you want to get the entire column, you’ll hit CTRL + SPACE.

Really, really easy to remember because the SPACEBAR is the longest key on the keyboard, which means you’re going to select a lot of cells, regardless. If you use the SHIFT key, it’s a wider, more horizontal, more left-and-right, therefore, it’s going to get you to select the entire row. And the CTRL key is going to be more narrow and more up-and-down, therefore, the entire column.

A couple of Shir words of wisdom. If you actually start on a single cell, you’ll get the entire column if you hit CTRL + SPACE. But if you start with, let’s say, three different cells and then you do CTRL + SPACE, it will expand the selection to include all of those columns. If I’m here right now and I do SHIFT + SPACE, it will expand to all of the rows, in effect selecting all the cells.

I’ve created some specific exercises to reinforce these Excel shortcuts. Go to your rows sheet and actually select the entire row of all the Xs, and move them by hitting CTRL + X on the PC or COMMAND + X on the Mac. Go to the spot you want to go to, and you can paste it.

Now, pasting, you can actually select that one cell at the beginning and it will do the job for you, but I recommend starting a habit now of selecting the same amount of cells as you were selecting before. Meaning, do a SHIFT + SPACE again, and then a CTRL + V to paste it. Both will work, but this is a better habit to start using.

You can also do the same thing with the columns. Select the entire column, CTRL + SPACE, cut it with CTRL + X and then paste it with CTRL + V. But again, select the whole column first, and then paste it. Notice you leave a little mark for where you were.

By the way, one more thing you can do here is you can actually notice that you can select an entire row or series of rows and, in one swoop, apply formatting, let’s say a bold. It’s one of those shortcuts where you can use it with other shortcuts to really maximize your time and be really, really efficient. So, that’s why I love SHIFT + SPACE for the entire row, CTRL + SPACE for the entire column.

Don’t forget to visit test.excelshir.com, where can download these exercises along with other free resources, such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac.

Thanks for watching. See you next time. And one last word of advice. If you find yourself in a heated argument, stop, take a deep breath and share the Excel love. It’ll defuse everything.

Stop wasting time scrolling with the mouse, and jump instantly to the bottom right or top left of your worksheet using this shortcut duo.

In this video, I’ll show you exactly how to move to the beginning and end of your spreadsheet quickly and precisely.

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Full Video Transcript:

Have you ever found yourself scrolling the mouse wheel like your life depended on it, something I like to call “The scroll of shame?” Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.

But in fact, those marathon scrolling sessions are long behind you once you learn this shortcut I’m about to teach you, and it’s actually a shortcut duo that lets you go to the very first and very last cell of your worksheet.

A less common but super valuable shortcut is how to move to the beginning and end of your active worksheet. The way to do it is to hit CTRL + HOME to jump to the top left and CTRL + END to jump to the bottom right.

It all depends on how much data you have in your sheet. So, the way to remember it is you’re catapulting. CTRL sounds like “Catapult,” at least it starts with the same letter, and you’re going to jump really quickly to the beginning, the top left, or the end, the bottom right.

If you’re on a Mac, you’re going to hit CTRL + fn + LEFT, which is really the same as the HOME, and you’re going to hit CTRL + fn + RIGHT to get to the end, to go to the first cell, last cell.

Couple things to keep in mind. If you go to a worksheet that has a lot of data, instead of scrolling around and trying to find the end and kind of struggling to see where you are, hit CTRL + END and you’ll know for sure where the end of your data is, and CTRL + HOME will you bring you back to the top. This is a really great application of when to use this shortcut.

Another example is if you have what seems to be a blank sheet and you do CTRL + END, you might jump very, very far down, and in fact, there might be something as seemingly innocent as a space, but that’s taking up memory on your sheet.

I actually had one client who had tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of blank cells that were completely not necessary, and the file started out as 70 MB large. That was seven, zero. By removing all those unused cells, we actually cut down the file size by about 95%, so it’s seemingly innocent, but actually can cause a lot of problems.

I’ve created some exercises where you can actually reinforce these shortcuts specifically. So, you’re going to go the X’s over here at the top. You’re going to find the cell that has the first X, hit CTRL + X on the PC or COMMAND + X on the Mac, and now you’re going to use the shortcut CTRL + END to jump to the bottom. Notice you didn’t even have to look for it. It’s there waiting for you because that’s where the end of the sheet is, and you’re going to find that spot and CTRL + V on the PC or COMMAND + V on the Mac to paste.

Don’t forget to visit test.excelshir.com where you can download these exercises, along with other free resources such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac.

Thanks for watching. See you next time, and in the spirit of Oprah Winfrey, share the Excel love. It’ll be your “Aha!” moment.

On a scale of 1-10, how annoying is it to switch back and forth between all your open spreadsheets? If you said anything higher than a 1, you’re doing it wrong!

In this video, I’m going to teach you how to switch between open spreadsheets (workbooks) WITHOUT touching the mouse, or minimizing and maximizing windows.

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I know you don’t mean to, but stop futzing around minimizing and maximizing windows and getting all confused when, really, you can keep your workbooks nice and big, and seamlessly switch between them with the shortcut I’m about to teach you.

When you have multiple spreadsheets or workbooks open, it’s really helpful to be able to move between them quickly. So, right now I have A open, but I want to switch between them, so I’m going to hit CTRL + TAB to move to the next one or the next one.

Now, if I keep going with CTRL + TAB, it’s going to cycle through. If I want to go in the reverse direction, I’m going to do CTRL + SHIFT + TAB to go in the opposite direction. Only really useful when you have a bunch open. That’s for PC.

For the Mac, it’s going to be COMMAND + `. What’s a grave, Shir? A grave is that key immediately to the left of the one. It’s got that reverse apostrophe thing going on, and it’s below the little tilde squiggle. So, the grave is the necessary piece. You hit COMMAND + `.

So, now, for the memory tricks. If you’re using the PC, control labs with control tab. Think of your lab as a workbook, right? Your little mad genius workstation here. That’s your lab. You want to control your lab with CTRL + TAB. That’s how you move to the next workbook. If you want to go in reverse, you hit the SHIFT, as well.

With the Mac, you want to window shop with gravitas. You’re window shopping because you’re switching between the different windows, and gravitas because you’re really serious and because you’re using the grave key. It’s pretty straightforward.

For this exercise that I created specifically for this purpose, you’re going to go ahead and start at the beginning. Move to the X that you want to move, hit CTRL + X on the PC or COMMAND + X on the Mac, do your shifting between the workbooks and actually find the spot, and then CTRL + V with the PC or COMMAND + V with the Mac to paste it in. And that is how you actually manage to practice all those things that we talked about.

Some Shir words of wisdom for you is to keep your screen very clutter-free. Close all of the workbooks that you’re not using. You might think that that’s pretty obvious, but believe me, over the years, I’ve seen a lot of clutter. Just keep open the workbooks that are relevant to your current task.

Don’t forget to visit test.excelshir.com where you can download these exercises, along with other free resources such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac.

Thanks for watching, see you next time, and like my mom always said, “Life is like a box of chocolates when you share the Excel love.”

This is, hands down, one of the most useful shortcuts in Microsoft Excel because no matter what industry you’re in or what kind of project you’re working on, you will have to move between the sheets countless times.

In this video, I’m going to show you how to fly effortlessly from one tab (worksheet) to another with Jedi-like precision.

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Full Video Transcript:

This is, hands down, one of the most useful shortcuts in Microsoft Excel because no matter what industry you’re in or what kind of project you’re working on, you will have to move between the sheets countless times. And today, I’m going to show you how to fly effortlessly from one sheet to another with Jedi-like precision.

Instead of clicking with the mouse to go back and forth between your worksheets, we’re now going to use the keyboard. On the PC, you’re going to hit CTRL + PGDN to go to the right, you’re going to hit CTRL + PGUP to go to the left, right? So CTRL + PGDN is the next, or to the right, CTRL + PGUP is previous, or to the left.

Same deal on the Mac, it’s CTRL + PGUP / CTRL + PGDN but to get to those keys, you have to hit the FN + DOWN or FN + UP. But again, it’s the same concept, PGUP/PGDN.

That leads us to the most amazing memory trick ever, at least I think so. Control your pages before they wet all the sheets. So, think of pages as like rambunctious little kids that are going around peeing everywhere. It’s gross, but it’ll help you remember, hopefully. That’s the way to remember it. Control your pages before they wet all the sheets.

In this exercise, I created a specific exercise to practice this over and over again. From the start point, you’re going to move all the X’s. You’re going to go to the cell that has the first X, CTRL + X on a PC or COMMAND + X on the Mac to cut it. You’re going to move over with your CTRL + PGDN until you get to the right spot, and CTRL + V to paste. You’re going to keep going back and forth until you could do this for all of the X’s. That’s your exercise.

Don’t forget to visit test.excelshir.com where you can download these exercises, along with other free resources such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac.

Thanks for watching. See you next time, and one quick thing before you go. I was texting Chewbacca the other day and he was telling me how he was trying to fix the Millennium Falcon, the Hyperdrive wasn’t working. I said, “Listen, Chewie. Just share the Excel love. It’ll all work out.”