1. Keep your hands on the keyboards.

Learn some keyboard shortcuts (see below) or press Alt+underlined letter in the Menu bar and then use the up and down arrows to move to the menu item you want and press Enter.

Ctrl+N open a new spreadsheet

Ctrl+S save the spreadsheet

Ctrl+P print the spreadsheet

Ctrl+W close the spreadsheet

Ctrl+A select all

Ctrl+C copy selected cells

Ctrl+X cut selected cells

Ctrl+V paste selected cells

Ctrl+home moves cursor to the top of the spreadsheet

Ctrl+end moves the cursor to the end of the spreadsheet

2. Use ready-made spreadsheets.

Excel comes with several ready-made spreadsheets such as a balance sheet, and expense statement, a sales invoice, a time card, and a loan amortization chart. To access them, click on File in the Menu Bar, click on New. On the right side of the screen, under Templates, select on my computer. For hundreds more ready-made spreadsheets, click on Templates on Office Online.

3. Use the automatic formatting feature.

To quickly give your spreadsheets a professional looking finish, select the spreadsheet, click on Format in the Menu Bar, click on AutoFormat. Scroll through the available formats and select the one you like, and click OK.

4. Record any routine steps.

If there are a series of steps that you perform on a regular basis, record the steps as a macro and run the from a keyboard shortcut. To record a macro, click on Tools in the Menu Bar, Macro, Record New Macro. Click on the keyboard button, and type in the keyboard combination you want to use as a shortcut (for example, Alt+/). Click on Assign, click on Close. You are now recording: every step you take will be a part of your macro. When you have finished all of the steps, click on Tools in the Menu Bar, click on Macro, click on Stop Recording. To run the macro, simply type in the keyboard combination you assigned to it.

5. Automatically resize all of the columns.

Click in the small gray box at the top left corner of the spreadsheet to select the entire spreadsheet (or, alternatively, press Ctrl+A); point the mouse to the vertical line between header A and header B and double-click. Every column will be automatically sized to the smallest possible size needed to display the information in it.