Insert a New Row or Column - Excel Keyboard Shortcut

Lately, I have been trying to use as many Excel keyboard shortcuts as I can (not only for productivity, but for ergonomic reasons). I haven't found a quick keyboard shortcut to insert a new row or column, but there is a two-step process that is quite convenient:
  1. Shift+SpaceBar = Select the current row
  2. Ctrl+Shift+PlusSign = Insert row(s)
To insert a new column, in step 1 use Ctrl+SpaceBar to select the current column. To insert more than one row or column at a time, use the arrow keys as you hold Shift before going to step 2.

11 comments:

Randy said...

Why not just use the keyboard shortcuts for the menu options to insert rows and columns? That is:

Alt-i, r = insert row
Alt-i, c = insert column

If you want to repeat and do more of each, you could just hit F4.

Anonymous said...

That was very helpful! Thanks

Anonymous said...

That was amazingly helpful, thank you!

Anonymous said...

Excellent shortcut....easy to learn and implement

Anonymous said...

I simply use Ctrl + '+'

Zizo said...

helpful shortcuts, specially the row/column selection

JobbyJob said...

How about Insert cut cells. This was a handy Excel 2003 feature which no longer seems to be found in Excel 2007?

Anonymous said...

Thanks very much. I tried Randy's suggestion and it didn't work but yours did and I'll be using it in future. Thanks again

Anonymous said...

Randy's way works the best and fastest. Especially with the F4. It might only be for excel 2007

Anonymous said...

ctrl+shift+'+' is not happening.
please suggest

Anonymous said...

for 2007 users, just hit this (not at the same time, but sequential): alt, h, i, r

I found ctrl+shift+i annoying as it gives me a popup where I keep selecting the same value before the row gets inserted. alt 'hir' is very fast.