Moving Around the Excel Screen
EACH WORKSHEET IN EXCEL has more than 17 billion individual cells. Luckily, Excel offers several methods using your mouse, your keyboard, and even the Ribbon for moving around them all. Depending on how you use Excel, you may find that you will use all three methods.
Using the Keyboard
Arguably the easiest, but surely the most common, way to move around an Excel worksheet is by using the keyboard. Table 1-1 displays some of the ways you can use the keyboard to move around an Excel workbook.
| Keystroke | Movement |
|---|---|
| Arrow keys | Moves one cell at a time in the direction of the arrow |
| Tab | Moves one cell right |
| Shift+Tab | Moves one cell left |
| Enter | Moves one cell down |
| Shift+Enter | Moves one cell up |
| Page Up | Moves one full screen up in the current column |
| Page Down | Moves one full screen down in the current column |
| Home | Moves to the first cell in column A of the current row |
| Ctrl+Home | Moves to first cell in the spreadsheet, cell A1 |
| Ctrl+End | Moves to the last cell in the spreadsheet that has any data in it |
| Alt+Page Down | Moves right one screen in the current row |
| Alt+Page Up | Moves left one screen in the current row |
| Ctrl+Arrow key | Moves to the next adjacent cell that contains data, depending on the direction of the arrow |
| Ctrl+Page Down | Moves to the next worksheet (see Figure 1-9) |
| Ctrl+Page Up | Moves to the previous worksheet |
Figure 1-9. Sheet3 is the active worksheet in this Excel workbook.
Tip
If the Ctrl+End keystroke takes you to a blank cell, then Excel remembered something you didn’t. This keystroke moves to the intersection of the last row and column that contains data, even if that cell is blank.
Using a Mouse
Any cell that you click on becomes the new active cell. You can use your mouse to select any cell that you can see on the spreadsheet. Use the scroll bars to make more of the worksheet visible. Both the horizontal and vertical scroll bars have arrows at each end (see Figure 1-10) to continue scrolling the worksheet.
Figure 1-10. The scroll bars allow you to move quickly through an Excel sheet with the mouse.
Another way to use the mouse within Excel is to toggle between worksheets in your current workbook. New workbooks contain three worksheets, labeled Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3. Clicking any worksheet tab makes that sheet appear on top of the other worksheets as the new active worksheet. Chapter 6, “Managing Large Amounts of Excel Data,” will describe how to use multiple worksheets.
Finally, you can use the mouse to select the Name box. If you know the cell address, you can type it into the Name box, press Enter, and move the worksheet directly to that cell.
Tip
If you want to see the last cell in the Excel worksheet, type the cell address XFD1048576 into the Name box and press Enter. Then, press Ctrl+Home to return to the beginning of the worksheet.
Using the Ribbon
You can use the Go To command to activate a specific cell or area of the worksheet. The Ribbon command for executing the Go To command is Home > Editing > Find & Select > Go To. When the Go To dialog box opens, enter the cell address into the Reference box and click the OK button (see Figure 1-11).
Figure 1-11. The Go To dialog box.
Understanding Ribbon CommandsRibbon commands are easy to follow. The first term (Home) is the tab name, the second term (Editing) is the group name. The last term (Go To) is the command name. If, as in this case, the Ribbon command includes a third term (Find & Select), click the arrow next to the option to open the gallery and find the final command. |
Using the Go To command in this manner is exactly the same as typing the cell address in the Name box, however, the Go To command remembers any previous cell addresses that you had entered, which makes returning to specific areas of a worksheet a breeze.
Tip
You can also use a keyboard shortcut to open the Go To dialog box. Press the F5 key, or the Ctrl+G key combination to display this dialog box directly.