If you're used to working with Excel on Windows, one of the most confusing aspects of using Excel on a Mac is shortcuts. Even basic shortcuts you've been using for years in Windows may not work as you expect.

1. Alt Mac
2. Alt Codes

Jun 10, 2013 I had a huge experience of using Microsoft Office on PC and I mainly use Excel on that, where I was use to Excel Shortcuts using Alt key which helps me a lot in navigating to Excel Ribbon. Now, recently I have shifted to Mac and bought a Office for Mac 2011 edition. 2020-4-2  The answer is to use Control+Option+Enter, which will create a line break in the cell. As an alternative, Control+Command+Enter can also be used to achieve the same. These combinations work both in Excel for Mac 2011 and the new Excel for Mac 2015. As pointed out by Shameer in this answer, Alt+Enter now seems to work as well in the new Excel for Mac 2015. The keyboard shortcuts make your work easier, faster and more efficiently. This list covers 224 shortcut keys you can use for Windows and Mac. It’s organized by 13 categories which you experience in Excel. Now in windows I was very much used to Alt key based shortcut functions that use to help me in navigating the ribbon specially in Excel. For example Alt+H+W use to wrap the text in the cell column of Excel on PC, Alt+H+B+A will put a border on all sides of the cell.

After a few problems, you might wind up thinking that Mac shortcuts are 'totally different' or somehow 'broken'. In reality, Excel shortcuts on the Mac are quite capable, you just have to understand and adjust to certain differences.

In this article, I'll walk you through the key differences you need to be aware of to work productively with Excel shortcuts on a Mac.

1. Special symbols

One of more confusing aspects of keyboard shortcuts on the Mac are the symbols you'll see for certain keys. For example, the Command key is abbreviated as ⌘, the Control key with ⌃, and the option key as ⌥. These symbols have a long history on the Mac, and you'll find them in menus everywhere.

The Mac Finder – abbreviations appear in all applications, not just Excel

You'll see these symbols in menus across all applications, so they're not specific to Excel. There really aren't too many symbols, so I recommend that you bite the bullet and memorize them. The table below shows some example shortcuts with a translation.

2. Function keys

Like their counterparts in the Windows world, Mac keyboards have function keys. These keys sit at the top of the keyboard and are labeled F1 to F12 on standard keyboards and F13, F14 and higher on extended keyboards.

Standard Mac keyboard with 12 function keys

As you know, function keys are uses for many shortcuts in Excel. For example, you can use F1 for help, F7 for spelling, and shift + F3 to insert a function. But if you try these shortcuts directly on a Mac, they don't work. Why?

By default, Function keys on a Mac control the computer itself, things like screen brightness, volume, video pause and play, and so on. This means that if press only the function keys in Excel, you'll end up controlling the Mac, and not Excel.

To make function keys work like you expect in Excel, you need to add a key: the function or fn key. You'll find the fn key in the lower left on your keyboard. Here are a few examples:

If you really hate using the fn key, you can change this behavior by changing a preference at System Preferences > Keyboard. Here you can check a box that will that will change function key behavior to work like 'standard function keys'.

If you do this, however, note that you won't be able to use function keys for things like Brightness, Volume, etc. unless you hold down the fn key. In essence, this setting reverses behavior so that you need to use fn to control the Mac.

Personally, I like using the function keys to control the computer, so I leave this setting alone, and just the fn key when needed in Excel.

3. Missing keys

Another difference that may trip you up on a Mac is certain keys are missing.

Your Microsoft account can only have one subscription associated with it. If you use the same Microsoft account to buy or redeem multiple Office 365 subscriptions, you extend the amount of time for your subscription, up to a maximum of 5 years.

Unless you're using an extended keyboard, keys like Home, End, backspace, Page up, and Page down are nowhere to be found. This is a problem, because many of these keys are used in Excel shortcuts. The solution is to use specific substitutions, as shown in the table below.

The substitutions let you perform the same actions you can do in Windows. However, They can make some shortcuts seem complicated on a Mac because you have to use more keys.

Note: If you're using an extended keyboard on a Mac, you don't need to worry about substitutions, since you'll have keys for Home, End, Page up, etc.

Extended keyboards have all the keys

4. Ribbon shortcuts

In the world of shortcuts, perhaps the most painful difference on a Mac is a lack of ribbon shortcuts.

Alt Mac

In Excel on Windows, you can use so called accelerator keys to access almost every command in Excel using only your keyboard. This doesn't matter much when you're performing an action that has a dedicated shortcut (i.e. Control + B for bold), since dedicated shortcuts are faster than ribbon shortcuts. But when you want to trigger an action that doesn't have a dedicated shortcut (like sort, hide gridlines, align text, etc.), it hurts a bit.

Excel ribbon in Windows with accelerator keys visible. No equivalent on the Mac!

5. Just different

Finally, some Excel shortcuts are just plain different on a Mac.

For example, the shortcut for Edit Cell in Windows is F2, and on a Mac, it's Control + U. The shortcut to toggle absolute and relative references is F4 in Windows, while on a Mac, its Command T. For a complete list of Windows and Mac shortcuts, see our side-by-side list.

Excel 2016/Office 365

With the introduction of Excel 2016 on the Mac, Microsoft has started to adjust Mac shortcuts to be more aligned with Windows. As of February 2016, many Windows shortcuts can be used in Excel 2016/Office 365. For example, you can use fn + F4 to toggle between absolute and relative references, Control + Shift + L to toggle a filter on and off, etc. So far, all the shortcuts that have been adjusted to match Windows shortcuts remain backward compatible with previous Mac only shortcuts. For example while fn F4 toggles references on the Mac, the old shortcut Command + T still works as well.

More shortcut resources

• 200 Excel shortcuts for Win and Mac (online list)
• The 54 Excel shortcuts you really should know (article)
• Laminated quick reference cards (old school)
• Excel shortcuts course - (video training)

Mac equivalents of Windows keys

Many of the keys that you'd see on a PC have equivalent keys on an Apple keyboard.

Windows logo: Press Command (⌘).

Backspace or Delete: Press Delete.

Enter or ⏎: Press Return.

Alt (left): Press Option (⌥).

Alt GR (right): Press Option + Control.

Applications: This key isn't available on Apple keyboards.

Use the On-Screen Keyboard for other functions

If your Apple keyboard doesn't include the following keys, you can recreate them in Windows using the On-Screen Keyboard.

Use the Snipping Tool to print screen

To recreate the Print Screen and Print Active Window function in Windows, use the Snipping Tool.

If your keyboard isn't working as expected in Windows

If your Apple keyboard works as expected in macOS but not in Windows, try these solutions:

• Install the latest Apple software updates for Windows.
• Install the latest Windows support software.
• If you're using Microsoft Windows 10 N, install the latest Media Feature Pack.

Learn more

Alt Codes

• Microsoft provides a keyboard mapping article that describes using a Windows keyboard with macOS.
• Use Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator to find key combinations for the unique characters used by the language and region your Apple keyboard is designed to support:
  1. Download, install, and open the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator.
  2. Choose File > Load Existing Keyboard.
  3. Select the keyboard you want to see.
  4. Find the country or region name in the keyboard list that's followed by '(Apple)'.
  5. Follow the instructions provided with the app. You can print images of the keyboard, including what keys look like when holding modifiers like Shift, Option, or Fn.