Course outline / Excel shortcuts

Lesson 10 of 75 · Beginner · 5 exercises

Editing shortcuts

Redo, italics, today's date, filters and absolute references from the keyboard.

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What you'll practise

  1. Redo Shortcut
  2. Italic Shortcut
  3. Type today's date Shortcut
  4. Turn filters on and off Shortcut
  5. Lock a reference with F4 Shortcut

Redo

Ctrl + Z undoes your last action. Ctrl + Y redoes it, if you undid too much.

Hold Ctrl and press Y.

Italic

Ctrl + I turns italics on or off, just as Ctrl + B does for bold.

Hold Ctrl and press I.

Type today's date

Ctrl + ; (semicolon) types today's date into the cell. Unlike TODAY(), it stays fixed: it's a stamp, not a formula.

Hold Ctrl and press the semicolon key.

Turn filters on and off

Ctrl + Shift + L adds filter arrows to your headers, or removes them.

Hold Ctrl and Shift, and press L.

Lock a reference with F4

While editing a formula, F4 adds dollar signs to the reference under the cursor, turning A1 into $A$1. Press again to cycle through A$1, $A1 and back to A1.

Press F4.

Try it in a real spreadsheet

Every step checks your answer instantly and tells you exactly what to fix.

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