MS shortcuts such as Alt E S T

[RebMarie]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

Hi,

I just got a gorgeous Mac Airbook and have been trying to make the most of the shift from PC to Mac. But I am completely stuck when using Excel (which I use a lot). In Excel I rely heavily on the 'standard' MS keyboard shortcuts (e.g. Alt E S T for Edit, paste Special, formaT). I cannot figure out how to activate the menu to allow me to use the shortcuts on the Mac. I realise that there are Mac shortcuts but they don't seem nearly as extensive as the MS keyboard shortcuts. Using the mouse takes so much more time and I'm starting to think that I'm going to need to dust off the PC. Many thanks in advance for any help you can give.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

Hi,

I just got a gorgeous Mac Airbook and have been trying to make the most of
the shift from PC to Mac. But I am completely stuck when using Excel (which I
use a lot). In Excel I rely heavily on the 'standard' MS keyboard shortcuts
(e.g. Alt E S T for Edit, paste Special, formaT). I cannot figure out how to
activate the menu to allow me to use the shortcuts on the Mac. I realise that
there are Mac shortcuts but they don't seem nearly as extensive as the MS
keyboard shortcuts. Using the mouse takes so much more time and I'm starting
to think that I'm going to need to dust off the PC. Many thanks in advance
for any help you can give.

MacOS doesn't work the same way, and MacXL doesn't have keyboard
navigation. You can turn on Keyboard navigation in System Preferences,
but you'll find they aren't as convenient as the main menu commands
can't be navigated by letter.

OTOH, in MacXL you can assign nearly any keyboard shortcut combination
to nearly any command using Tools/Customize Keyboard...


For instance, I have "Paste Formatting" mapped to CTRL-f, which is even
more economical than Alt-E-S-T.

It's also more mnemonic-al - I find it much easier to associate "paste
Formatting" with "f" than "t", much less which menu it's on.