A purchaser of my Check Register spreadsheet recently emailed me, asking if there was a quick way to get to the bottom of her register — to get to the first blank row, in other words, in order to quickly add a new transaction. When you have five hundred transactions in your register, scrolling all the way to the bottom of your data so you can enter a new transaction … well, it just ain’t a lot of fun.
Now, Excel has always had lots of keyboard shortcuts. The one that’s most applicable here would be the [CNTRL]-[DOWN ARROW], or [CNTRL]-↓, shortcut.
Getting to the Bottom of It
When I press the [CNTRL]-↓ combination, Excel will automatically take me down to the last nonblank cell in my current, active column. So, in the case of my Check Register spreadsheet, placing Excel’s cursor in any cell in the DATE column (Column C), and then pressing [CNTRL]-↓, will take me to the last nonblank cell in that column.
From there, a single arrow-down keypress gets us to the next blank row, and we’re ready to enter the new transaction. No scrolling involved!
(Conversely, pressing [CNTRL]-↑ would take you to the topmost nonblank cell in your current column.)
guestinca wrote:
When I work in an Excel spreadsheet, if I position the cursor in the next cell I want to make an entry in & SAVE, then when I reopen the spreadsheet it takes me there automatically.