Quick Tip

Fast navigation using any input

Whether you prefer to use the mouse or the keyboard (or both), these speed tips will have you selecting cells fast.

Navigate quickly with the mouse

Move around the current worksheet with the mouse scroll wheel like this:

Scroll direction	Shortcut
Up	Scroll up
Down	Scroll down
Left	Ctrl + Shift + Scroll up
Right	Ctrl + Shift + Scroll down

On a Mac, scrolling left or right needs only Shift, not Ctrl + Shift

Make scrolling easier by zooming

What if the cell you want to see is many rows or columns away?

Just zoom out first, scroll to the cell you want, then zoom back in again. You can zoom quickly using the Ctrl key and the mouse scroll wheel, like this:

Action	Shortcut
Zoom in	Ctrl + Scroll up
Zoom out	Ctrl + Scroll down

On a Mac, zoom using Cmd instead of Ctrl

Difference between viewing and selecting cells with the mouse

All of these mouse actions change what you see in the grid view, but do not affect which cell is active or which cells are selected.

To use the mouse to quickly get to the cells you want and then select them:

1. Use the above methods to bring the cells you need into view; then
2. Click and drag to select the cells you want selected.

When the range you want to select is many screens worth of cells high or wide, don’t waste time dragging the mouse while the view scrolls as you select cells.

Instead, use this much faster process:

1. Navigate to the cell in the top left of the range you want to select, and click once on that single cell
2. Scroll to the cell in the lower right of the desired range, using only the scroll wheel or scroll bar (do not click on any cells yet!)
3. Hold down the Shift key and click once on the single cell at the lower right of the desired range.

Navigate quickly with the keyboard

If you prefer to use the keyboard to see and select the cells you need, you can do this quickly too.

Use these shortcut keys to navigate around the current worksheet:

To activate the next cell in any direction (and scroll the view, if necessary), just use the corresponding arrow key (←, →, ↑ or ↓).

To scroll one whole screen in any direction and activate the corresponding cell:

Scroll direction	Shortcut
Scroll the current view up one whole screen	PageUp
Scroll the current view down one whole screen	PageDown
Scroll the current view left one whole screen	Alt + PageUp
Scroll the current view right one whole screen	Alt + PageDown

Select and scroll using worksheet content

To quickly select a cell farther away in any direction, you can use the following shortcuts:

To select and scroll to this cell	Shortcut
Top left visible cell in worksheet*	Ctrl + Home
Start of current row	Home
Leftmost cell in current range (if within a contiguous range of nonblank cells); or Next non-blank cell to the left (if at a blank cell, or at the leftmost cell of a contiguous range of nonblank cells)	Ctrl + ←
Rightmost cell in current range (if within a contiguous range of nonblank cells); or Next non-blank cell to the right (if at a blank cell, or at the rightmost cell of a contiguous range of nonblank cells)	Ctrl + →
Uppermost cell in current range (if within a contiguous range of nonblank cells); or Next non-blank cell above (if at a blank cell, or at the uppermost cell of a contiguous range of nonblank cells)	Ctrl + ↑
Lowermost cell in current range (if within a contiguous range of nonblank cells); or Next non-blank cell below (if at a blank cell, or at the lowermost cell of a contiguous range of nonblank cells)	Ctrl + ↓
End of current row	End
Lower right cell in utilized range of current worksheet	Ctrl + End

* The scrollable section of the worksheet grid only. If you have “freeze panes” selected, the frozen cells are treated as beyond the top left cell.

Difference between viewing and selecting cells with the keyboard

All of these keyboard actions change which cell is active/selected, and scroll it into view (unless it is already on the screen).

Select a range of cells quickly with the keyboard

To quickly select a range of cells using only the keyboard:

1. Use the shortcuts above to select a single cell in any corner of the desired range
2. Hold down the Shift key
3. While keeping Shift held, use the shortcuts above to select the whole range.