Excel Pivot Table Shortcuts

Hybrid Excel Shortcuts For Pivot Tables

Below I’ve highlighted some hot keys that pop up when you right click on an Excel pivot table.  I’ve highlighted only those hot keys that you can type with your left hand.

Why?  Because I’m a big fan of keeping my right hand on the mouse when I’m in Excel (vs. on the keyboard).

You can leverage each hot key into a “hybrid shortcut” (part mouse, part keyboard).  Here’s how you do it.

Look at the first menu choice with a highlighted hot key on the left: “Format Cells…”  F is the hot key, which means that after you right click, you can simply hit “F” to bring up that menu choice.  It will produce the same result as left-clicking on “Format Cells…”  So to bring up the Format Cells dialog box, just type RC-F (or Right-Click, followed by F).

Similarly with all other hot keys.  Just right-click, then type the hot key, and voila — you have your shortcut.

My Favorite Hybrid Excel Pivot Table Shortcuts

There’s only one I really like from the left menu (when you right click on the pivot table’s row label column):

Refresh Pivot Table: RC-R (alternatively, you can do Alt-A-R, but I think RC-R is faster)

My favorites from the right menu (when you click on the pivot table’s data column):

Refresh Pivot Table: RC-R (alternatively, you can do Alt-A-R, but I think RC-R is faster)

Show Details: RC-E (this is the same as double-clicking on the cell to explode the detail out onto another sheet — think of the “E” hot key as standing for “Explode”)

That’s It For Excel Pivot Table Shortcuts

As you work with Excel pivot tables, hopefully you’ll find a few of these shortcuts useful.

And keep this hybrid shortcut approach in mind whenever you’re in Excel and have a context menu at your disposal.  Hybrid shortcuts are a great way to help keep your right hand on the mouse and your left hand on the keyboard.