Ask BBallers: Excel Question
By BankersBall on Dec 11, 2007 in Ask BBallers, Cube Life, Excel
A reader asks fellow BBallers for help on the Excel front.
Dear BBallers:
I have an Excel request that pains me daily. Does anyone know a keyboard shortcut to replace “clicking the button to the right of a cell reference selection” so that you can just highlight the cells you want to reference rather than type their refs? An easy example is when you start the pivot wizard and do not have any data currently highlighted, after selecting pivot table, the second prompt is: 
I am talking about that little bastard button with the red arrow. F2 is the intuitive choice for me but of course, it does nothing. I want to press a couple keys and begin end + arrow-ing to select the available data without switching to the mouse…
On Dec 11, 2007, J-pac said:
When you get the box to pop up, you can just D-Arrow over to the data. That should work, unless I’m misunderstanding. You could also press F2 twice.
On Dec 12, 2007, Captain Obvious said:
Good lord.
In the case of pivot tables, why not highlight your data first then alt-p to the pivot table toolbar, down-arrow, then return to launch the wizard with the data already highlighted?
Or if you still refuse to join the 21st century, as the above poster wrote, just start down-arrowing to highlight your data.
Actually, on second thought, just kill yourself.
On Dec 12, 2007, GreatWhiteNorth said:
Select data (Ctrl Shift, R Arrow, D arrow) Then Alt D, P, F. That will create a new pivot table. Unless I’m missing something, that should work.
On Jan 4, 2008, Anonymous said:
ALT + R
On May 7, 2008, shallaw said:
I want to find the name of the cell that has a maximum number in a logical function?
On Jul 22, 2008, DUH said:
I second just killing yourself.
On Aug 27, 2008, Anonymous said:
u arrogant fucks. the guy is just asking for some excel short cuts. u think u r so smart to know them? prob took u a year to figure it out
On Aug 28, 2008, GreatWhiteNorth said:
Anonymous…
A year? Nope! Years! Just trying to help out.
Go home and get some sleep.
Any other Excel questions, please feel free to ask.
GWN