Thursday, January 7, 2016

Navigating in the New Year!

It is often a wise strategy to occasionally review and brush up on some basics. What better time to do this than the beginning of a new year!

Any Excel user spends a great deal of his or her time Navigating their Excel workbooks. This can potentially be a bit of drudgery, especially if you are working with very large worksheets. If you are working with a worksheet with 40 records, No Big Deal - If you are working with one with 40,000 records, however, it is a significant consideration!

A few Cool Keyboard Tricks can save your day, and maybe even let you get out of the office early. Here are few Simple Actions you can make without ever touching a mouse:

1. Control / Down Arrow: Takes you to last cell in column with data
2. Control / Right Arrow: Takes you to last cell in row with data
3. Control / End: Takes you to the last row, column and cell
4. Control / Home: Returns to cell A1

Another way to navigate, of course, is to use some clever moves with your mouse. To go to the end of your data, (whether in a column or row), carefully place your pointer on the adjacent Border of the Cell in your range and double-click. For instance, if you wish to navigate to the last cell in a column of data that starts with cell E1, you can select E1 and double-click on the bottom border of the cell.  Bamm, away you go!

Another, occasionally useful way to navigate to a specific location is to use the Name Box in the upper-left corner of your worksheet. This is beneficial when you know the exact address of some remote cell. Simply enter the address (e.g. DM5200) in the Name Box and Presto, you are taken directly to that location!

Using these elementary (and sometimes forgotten) methods can take the chore out of navigating your worksheets. Try them out for the New Year!

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