Keyboard shortcuts for moving the cell cursor in Excel 2007
Excel offers a wide variety of keystrokes for moving the cell cursor to a new cell. When you use one of these keystrokes, the program automatically scrolls a new part of the worksheet into view, if this is required to move the cell pointer.
| Keystroke | Where the Cell Cursor Moves |
|---|---|
| → or Tab | Cell to the immediate right. |
| ← or Shift+Tab | Cell to the immediate left. |
| ↑ |
Cell up one row. |
| ↓ |
Cell down one row. |
| Home | Cell in Column A of the current row. |
| Ctrl+Home | First cell (A1) of the worksheet. |
| Ctrl+End or End, Home | Cell in the worksheet at the intersection of the last column that has any data in it and the last row that has any data in it (that is, the last cell of the so-called active area of the worksheet). |
| PgUp | Cell one full screen up in the same column. |
| PgDn | Cell one full screen down in the same column. |
| Ctrl+→ or End, → | First occupied cell to the right in the same row that is either preceded or followed by a blank cell. If no cell is occupied, the pointer goes to the cell at the very end of the row. |
| Ctrl+← or End, ← | First occupied cell to the left in the same row that is either preceded or followed by a blank cell. If no cell is occupied, the pointer goes to the cell at the very beginning of the row. |
| Ctrl+↑ or End, ↑ | First occupied cell above in the same column that is either preceded or followed by a blank cell. If no cell is occupied, the pointer goes to the cell at the very top of the column. |
| Ctrl+↓ or End, ↓ | First occupied cell below in the same column that is either preceded or followed by a blank cell. If no cell is occupied, the pointer goes to the cell at the very bottom of the column. |
| Ctrl+Page Down | Last occupied cell in the next worksheet of that workbook. |
| Ctrl+Page Up | Last occupied cell in the previous worksheet of that workbook. |
Note: In the case of those keystrokes that use arrow keys, you must either use the arrows on the cursor keypad or else have the Num Lock disengaged on the numeric keypad of your keyboard.
The keystrokes that combine the Ctrl or End key with an arrow key are among the most helpful for moving quickly from one edge to the other in large tables of cell entries or in moving from table to table in a section of the worksheet that contains many blocks of cells.
When you use Ctrl and an arrow key to move from edge to edge in a table or between tables in a worksheet, you hold down Ctrl while you press one of the four arrow keys (indicated by the + symbol in keystrokes, such as Ctrl+→).
When you use End and an arrow-key alternative, you must press and then release the End key before you press the arrow key (indicated by the comma in keystrokes, such as End, →). Pressing and releasing the End key causes the End Mode indicator to appear on the status bar. This is your sign that Excel is ready for you to press one of the four arrow keys.
Because you can keep the Ctrl key depressed as you press the different arrow keys that you need to use, the Ctrl-plus-arrow-key method provides a more fluid method for navigating blocks of cells than the End-then-arrow-key method.
You can use the Scroll Lock key to "freeze" the position of the cell pointer in the worksheet so that you can scroll new areas of the worksheet in view with keystrokes such as PgUp (Page Up) and PgDn (Page Down) without changing the cell pointer's original position (in essence, making these keystrokes work in the same manner as the scroll bars).
After engaging Scroll Lock, when you scroll the worksheet with the keyboard, Excel does not select a new cell while it brings a new section of the worksheet into view. To "unfreeze" the cell pointer when scrolling the worksheet via the keyboard, you just press the Scroll Lock key again.
Tags: keyboard shortcuts,workbook,worksheet
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