The mighty F4 key is popular when building formula references.Thanks to Myles Arnott, Glen Feechan, Shelley Fishel, Colin Legg, and Nathan Zelany for suggesting this feature. For example, going into Field Settings in a Pivot Table and changing the number format and calculation is one that would be nice to repeat. There are a few annoying commands that do not work with F4. If you see a few more cells that need the same format, select the cells and press F4. Perhaps you just built a custom format to display numbers in thousands: #,#0,K. The F4 command works for a surprising number of commands. To keep deleting rows, press the Down arrow followed by F4 until all the blank rows are gone. To delete the remaining columns, keep pressing Right arrow then F4. This beautiful command repeats the last command that you invoked. Instead of doing Alt + E, D, C Enter again, simply press F4. But even if you are really fast at doing Alt + E, D, C Enter, it can be a pain to do a lot of these in a row.Īfter deleting column B, press the Right arrow key to move to the next column that needs to be deleted. Alt + E, D, C Enter will delete a column. The result? A single formula that can be copied to C3:F12. What if you screw up and press F4 too many times? Keep pressing F4: It will toggle back to relative then absolute, then row absolute, then column absolute. To enter the above formula, you would press F4 once after clicking on H1, three times after clicking on A3, and twice after clicking on C1. The C1 will always point to row 1, so you need C$1. The A3 will always point back to column A, so you need $A3. The H1 will always point to H1, so you need both dollar signs in $H$1. In the following example, you need to multiply H2 by A3 by C1. There are other times when you need only part of the reference to be locked. Pressing F4 while the insertion point is touching the F1 reference is a fast way to add both dollar signs. The $F$1 says that no matter where you copy this formula, that part of the formula always needs to point to F1. Two dollar signs are added to the final element of the formula. The solution? Edit the original formula and press F4. But unfortunately, the reference to the sales tax in F1 is changing as well.
As you copy the formula down the column, the B2 reference automatically changes to B3, B4, and so on. In the following figure, the tax in C2 is B2 times F1.īut when you copy this formula down, none of the sales tax calculations are working. When you are not editing a formula, use F4 to repeat the last command. Use F4 to add dollar signs in formula references to make them absolute, mixed, or relative. The mighty F4 key should be in your Excel arsenal for two completely different reasons:
But the F4 key has a whole other set of skills when you are not in Formula Edit mode. Yes, F4 adds the $ to a formula to make it absolute. Today, the secret double-life of the F4 key.
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