[Upbeat music] Data entry is the heart of Excel.
If you can't quickly and accurately enter data into your worksheets,
you also cannot easily use Excel tools to analyze and report on the data.
Hi, I'm Dawn Bjork, The Software Pro.
I'm also a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Certified Excel Expert.
Let's explore time-saving Microsoft Excel, data entry, tips,
and shortcuts.
To review some of the important basics with editing cell entries,
the first is that if you want to type in a new entry,
there's no need to delete what you already have there.
Simply type on top of it and hit ENTER. However,
when we do want to change the existing content,
whether it's text data or even a formula,
we have a couple different options for that.
One is that we could go up to our formula bar.
And this is where we can edit this content.
Second is to do in-place editing. Now for in-place editing,
this is often easier because we're in the location in the worksheet where we
want to make the change. So two different ways to get to the same place.
And that is either to double click into the cell,
or we could press the F2 function key. They will both do the same thing,
that is, to open up the cell for editing.
Any time you want to delete an entry without changing it simply hit your DELETE
key. The cell is now empty,
but it retains the formatting that may have been applied.
If we deleted those,
it's still as bold and then typing in a different entry at
some point would still retain that formatting.
Should you want to clear out everything?
What you can do is look in the Home tab and we'll look here for Clear
in the dropdown. You have the option then to Clear All.
This means formatting and content.
Clear Contents is the equivalent to selecting it and hitting the DELETE key.
You also could Clear Formats whether or not there's content.
This gives you a lot more flexibility editing the contents of your cells.
Also keep in mind your Undo and Redo.
You may work with these every day.
There are a couple of different options for working with Undo and Redo.
If you know the keyboard shortcuts, for instance, Undo is CTRL + Z.
If I type in an entry here and change my mind, CTRL + Z.
Now, if I want to redo the last action,
whether it's editing or formatting or some other
choice within Excel, CTRL + Y is a redo.
You'll find these built into the Quick Access Toolbar,
which will either be above or below your ribbon in Excel.
Let's look at some other quick and easy shortcuts for entering data in Excel.
To enter the current date that is CTRL and the semi colon (;).
This cell will take on whatever formatting has been currently applied to the
cells. The time is CTRL and the colon (:).
Now, unlike functions,
this is capturing the current date and time,
and it's not going to change. It's not dynamic.
It will be whatever date and time you're using these shortcuts.
When you have a lot of repetitive data,
this is where we can leverage some other keyboard shortcuts. Now,
these are some very simple examples,
and it wouldn't take much for us just to type this directly,
but CTRL + D or CTRL + and the single quote (') are ways
to duplicate from the cell or the row immediately above.
Once again, CTRL + D. When you have lengthy titles,
comments, notes,
it might be tempting to actually hit the ENTER key,
to try to move it down to the next line. And in this case,
we don't want to create another row,
I'd simply like to see this title on two different lines
for that. The trick is to press ALT + ENTER.
And this can be a handy way for you to be able to work with longer column
headings in list that you're sorting and filtering,
and simply to create a line break for that heading text.
And we'll make a quick adjustment to the row height
so that's easy to display. Let's wrap up with two other quick shortcuts.
When you're working in a workbook,
there may be times when you simply want to add a brand new worksheet.
And here again, as with a lot of things in Excel, there can be two, three,
sometimes four different ways of getting something done.
The keyboard shortcut for adding a new worksheet is SHIFT and the F11 function
key.
This new worksheet will then be named with the next available sheet
number. In this case, it's Sheet1.
When you have lengthy text entries, comments, notes,
or formulas,
another way for you to more easily edit them could be by double clicking
as we saw earlier for in-place editing. Or,
we could expand the formula bar.
The formula bar defaults to one line,
but by simply moving to the right hand side and clicking on that down arrow,
you could expand it.
Notice here as well there's a keyboard shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + U.
Now you can then size this and perhaps you want it to be three or
four lines or two lines.
It's up to you and it will stay that way unless you decide to
collapse it. Once again, the keyboard shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + U.
Try these data entry shortcuts to see how you can save time when you're working
in Excel.
Now you have shortcuts and tricks the next time you are adding and editing data
in Excel. For more tips and shortcuts on being productive with Excel,
head to TheSoftwarePro.com/Excel.
If this training was helpful,
please like and comment on this video and subscribe to this channel.
This is Dawn Bjork, The Software Pro. Thanks for watching.