Where is Control+Home for Excel on a Mac

I wrote a post stating that I could not find the Windows Ctrl+Home keyboard shortcut equivalent on a Mac. Well I’m here to tell you that I found the keyboard shortcut combination that does the same thing on a Mac. The Excel Gods are with me. Hallelujah!

Finding My Way Home

The key to finding this elusive keyboard shortcut is in the Keyboard Viewer. On your Mac select the Apple icon () and click System Preferences… Select Keyboard, and then make sure to click the Keyboard tab. Check the box for: Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in menu bar.

Excel home key on mac

Click the Keyboard Viewer icon Keyboard Viewer Iconin your Mac menu bar and a nice replica of your Mac keyboard will appear.

Keyboard Viewer Mac

You will notice that this viewer reflects the keys you tap on your keyboard. The screen shot above shows the Command and Shift keys are depressed. The Keyboard Viewer will also show different symbols when you press various keys, like fn, Control, Option, Command, etc.

This is where I noticed something interesting. While depressing the fn key, the left arrow button changes its angle to point up about 30 degrees. Knowing that allowed me to do a little testing in Microsoft Excel 2011 for the Mac.

Excel Control+Home Key on Mac

What I found is that the Windows Control+Home keyboard combination can be replicated on a Mac by either of the following keyboard shortcut combinations. This is the home key on Mac:

fn+Command+Left Arrow

fn+Control+Left Arrow

Another mystery solved.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Another aid in finding keyboard shortcuts comes in the form of an overlay for your Mac keyboard. The kind folks over at Excel Skin™ gave me an overlay that slips over the Mac keyboard and shows, via color coding, a wide array of shortcuts that work in Excel for Mac. Here is why you might want an excel skin.

4 thoughts on “Where is Control+Home for Excel on a Mac”

  1. You are the man. As a former excel ninja trained in Office 2003 from my banking days, I’ve been extremely frustrated using mac’s excel (or office 2007 excel for that matter). This site is the balls. Well done.

    Reply

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