Excel – Microsoft Excel Mac, keyboard shortcut to edit in cell

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In Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011 (14.0.0) how can I modify the enter/return key to edit in cell instead of moving the selection down? I know that in Preferences > Edit you can uncheck the box that says "After pressing RETURN, move selection [Down/Right/Up/Left]" which at least makes it a little less annoying, but this behaviour is still not productive.

I'm aware I could emulate the effect using Automator, macros, Butler and whatnot but I prefer not to use a third-party application to do this. I'm open to modifying the system preferences and I'm comfortable using the Terminal, though.

EDIT: I found out here http://www.electrictoolbox.com/keyboard-shortcuts-excel-mac/ that CTRL+U is the keyboard shortcut for edit in cell. Now if it were somehow possible to remap that to CMD+Return by editing some plist file or writing some magic formula in the Terminal, it would be perfect!

Best Answer

Excel does not offer a direct way to customize this: it is neither a menu command (which would be available to OS X’s system wide shortcuts), nor is it a shortcut configurable via Office’s dedicated Tools → Customize Keyboard… (approximate translation, I’m on a German system) dialog – as you can easily test by calling the dialog and pressing Ctrl+U in the Add Shortcut box (no assigned shortcut will be shown).

You can, however, work around the issue by remapping Cmd+Return to Ctrl+U using Takayama Fumihiko’s KeyRemap4MacBook (which, despite its name, will work on any Mac running OS X 10.4 upwards). You will have to add a private.xml configuration file to KeyRemap4MacBook like documented on the KeyRemap4MacBook site, with its XML content looking like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>Remap "Edit in Cell" in Excel</name>
    <appendix>Use Command+Return instead of Ctrl+U</appendix>
    <identifier>private.app_excel_commandreturn_to_ctrlu</identifier>
    <only>EXCEL</only>
    <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::RETURN, VK_COMMAND, KeyCode::U, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

– this will restrict the remapping to Excel (for a complete list of the keycodes used by KeyRemap4MacBook, see its source code).

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Excel – Does excel have an arrow key shortcut to skip blank cells

No, but set it up this way, and Tab and Shift+Tab will take you to the next and previous highlighted row. First do this:

Change your formula to =IF(MID($C2,5,1)=" ", 1, "") (copying down, of course)
Highlight the column (Ctrl+Space will do that if you're in any cell in that column).
Press F5, then Alt+Special, Formula, de-select Text, then Enter
- To exclude errors, de-select Errors in step 3 also. (e.g., when LEN($C2)<5, but you could also change the formula to account for that)

Now the Tab key will step you through each cell in that column that has a numeric value in it (1). It also has the added bonus that in step 2 above, you can see the total of the highlighted rows in the status bar at the bottom of the screen (Sum:).

Excel – How to unselect Excel Cell using Keyboard Shortcut

By using the SHIFT and/or the CTRL keys you can select non-contiguous ranges. However, if you select a cell or area by mistake, there is no built in way to remove that from the selection without losing the entire selection and having to start over. This page describes to VBA procedures, UnSelectActiveCell and UnSelectCurrentArea that will remove the Active Cell or the Area containing the Active Cell from the current selection. All other cells in the Selection will remain selected.

Your best bet would be to add these to your Personal Macro workbook so that they are available to all open workbooks in Excel.

This procedure will remove the Active Cell from the Selection.

Sub UnSelectActiveCell()
    Dim R As Range
    Dim RR As Range
    For Each R In Selection.Cells
        If StrComp(R.Address, ActiveCell.Address, vbBinaryCompare) <> 0 Then
            If RR Is Nothing Then
                Set RR = R
            Else
                Set RR = Application.Union(RR, R)
            End If
        End If
    Next R
    If Not RR Is Nothing Then
        RR.Select
    End If
End Sub

This procedure will remove the Area containing the Active Cell from the Selection.

Sub UnSelectCurrentArea()
    Dim Area As Range
    Dim RR As Range

    For Each Area In Selection.Areas
        If Application.Intersect(Area, ActiveCell) Is Nothing Then
            If RR Is Nothing Then
                Set RR = Area
            Else
                Set RR = Application.Union(RR, Area)
            End If
        End If
    Next Area
    If Not RR Is Nothing Then
        RR.Select
    End If
End Sub

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