Excel - Move Around in Excel

Microsoft Excel - Excel Basics

Part 6 - Move Around in Excel

Excel provides a number of ways to move around a sheet using the mouse and the keyboard.
First of all, let us create some sample text before we proceed. Open a new excel sheet and type any data. We've shown a sample data in the screenshot.

OrderDate	Region	Rep	Item	Units	Unit Cost	Total
1/6/2010	East	Jones	Pencil	95	1.99	189.05
1/23/2010	Central	Kivell	Binder	50	19.99	999.5
2/9/2010	Central	Jardine	Pencil	36	4.99	179.64
2/26/2010	Central	Gill	Pen	27	19.99	539.73
3/15/2010	West	Sorvino	Pencil	56	2.99	167.44
4/1/2010	East	Jones	Binder	60	4.99	299.4
4/18/2010	Central	Andrews	Pencil	75	1.99	149.25
5/5/2010	Central	Jardine	Pencil	90	4.99	449.1
5/22/2010	West	Thompson	Pencil	32	1.99	63.68
6/8/2010	East	Jones	Binder	60	8.99	539.4
6/25/2010	Central	Morgan	Pencil	90	4.99	449.1
7/12/2010	East	Howard	Binder	29	1.99	57.71
7/29/2010	East	Parent	Binder	81	19.99	1,619.19
8/15/2010	East	Jones	Pencil	35	4.99	174.65

Moving with Mouse

You can easily move the insertion point by clicking in your text anywhere on the screen. Sometime if the sheet is big then you cannot see a place where you want to move. In such situations, you would have to use the scroll bars, as shown in the following screen shot −





You can scroll your sheet by rolling your mouse wheel, which is equivalent to clicking the up-arrow or down-arrow buttons in the scroll bar.

Moving with Scroll Bars

As shown in the above screen capture, there are two scroll bars: one for moving vertically within the sheet, and one for moving horizontally. Using the vertical scroll bar, you may −

• Move upward by one line by clicking the upward-pointing scroll arrow.
• Move downward by one line by clicking the downward-pointing scroll arrow.
• Move one next page, using next page button (footnote).
• Move one previous page, using previous page button (footnote).
• Use Browse Object button to move through the sheet, going from one chosen object to the next.

Moving with Keyboard

The following keyboard commands, used for moving around your sheet, also move the insertion point −

Keystroke	Where the Insertion Point Moves
	Forward one box
	Back one box
	Up one box
	Down one box
PageUp	To the previous screen
PageDown	To the next screen
Home	To the beginning of the current screen
End	To the end of the current screen

You can move box by box or sheet by sheet. Now click in any box containing data in the sheet. You would have to hold down the Ctrl key while pressing an arrow key, which moves the insertion point as described here −

Key Combination	Where the Insertion Point Moves
Ctrl +	To the last box containing data of the current row.
Ctrl +	To the first box containing data of the current row.
Ctrl +	To the first box containing data of the current column.
Ctrl +	To the last box containing data of the current column.
Ctrl + PageUp	To the sheet in the left of the current sheet.
Ctrl + PageDown	To the sheet in the right of the current sheet.
Ctrl + Home	To the beginning of the sheet.
Ctrl + End	To the end of the sheet.

Moving with Go To Command

Press F5 key to use Go To command, which will display a dialogue box where you will find various options to reach to a particular box.
Normally, we use row and column number, for example K5 and finally press Go To button.