F4 not working

[Papa Jonah]

I used to use the F4 key to repeat an action in Excel or Word. That is no
longer working. Is there a setting that must have been accidently undone?
How can I fix it?

TIA
Papa

 

[ShaneDevenshire]

Hi,

Non that I know of, however, F4 does different things in Excel depending on
where you are
- Repeats last command
- Opens combo boxes
- Change relative and absolute cell references

One thing that can disable F4 is a macro that runs automatically, do you
have any of those? For example and Worksheet_Change,
Worksheet_SelectionChange events or any macro that runs will cause this
problem.

Does the Format Painter still work?

 

[Papa Jonah]

No macros - in fact it is the same thing with new files.
If you mean, by the format painter, can I color a cell and repeat the
function with F4, then the answer is no.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Do other Fn keys work as you want?

I'm thinking you have a keyboard with the F-Lock function and you have
enabled the alternate setting.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[ShaneDevenshire]

Hi,

Gord's idea is a good one. What I really wanted to know about the Format
Painter was if you double-click it can you repeat the paste format command
with it, not with the F4 key.

Following Gord's idea, it reminds me to ask - are you on a Mac? On a Mac
there is a system setting which reassigns most of the F keys.

Just FYI - it is possible via VBA to reset the function of keys, that is one
of the reasons I asked about macros.