XLKeys Blog
Practical guides for spreadsheet users who want familiar Excel shortcuts, formula auditing, modeling tools, and healthier workbooks inside Google Sheets.
Your model came over from Excel and now typing has a delay and the loading bar never leaves. The short version of why, and how I find the actual problem instead of guessing.
Read guideYou tap Alt, type H, and nothing happens — or Chrome’s menu opens. Here’s why Google Sheets has no Alt keys, what it gives you instead, and how to get the Excel sequences working anyway.
Read guideYou rebuilt the table, pasted the data, and every column came out the wrong width. Here’s how to copy column widths from one range to another in Google Sheets — and how to do it from the keyboard.
Read guideGoogle Sheets makes you double-click a column border every time you want to autofit. Here’s every native method, the gotchas, and how to do it from the keyboard.
Read guideGoogle Sheets has no built-in What-If data table. Here are the three ways people actually do it, from fully manual to one keyboard shortcut.
Read guideThe full mapping: every Excel shortcut I use, what Google Sheets natively offers instead, and how to make the Excel version just work.
Read guideIt is usually obvious when a Google Sheet has a problem. Finding the cause is the hard part. These two new scans are meant to make that easier.
Read guideIf typing into your sheet has a half-second delay and the green loading bar never goes away, this is for you. The real causes of a slow Google Sheet and how to fix each one.
Read guideOpenAI’s official ChatGPT app lives inside Google Sheets and edits your cells for you. It’s decent — here’s how to set it up, where it helps, and where it’ll get you in trouble.
Read guideMost Google Sheets charts look cluttered and amateur out of the box. Here’s how to make your charts look clean along with all the problems folks run into along the way.
Read guideIf you switched from Windows to Mac and your muscle memory is fighting you every day, here’s how to fix it.
Read guideExcel on a Mac sucks. Here are some real ways to get your productivity back.
Read guideIndenting cells is usually the best practice when formatting your model, but it’s way more clicks than it should be. Here’s the native way and a much faster shortcut.
Read guideI recently moved from Investment Banking to Strategic Finance and one of the biggest annoyances was losing all the keyboard shortcuts that made me an Excel power user. Here are the two best ways to get them back.
Read guideShort answer: no, but there are some pretty close alternatives.
Read guideEvery Excel formatting shortcut I missed when I moved to Google Sheets — fill color, borders, autofit, freeze panes, number formats — and how to get them all back.
Read guideGoogle Sheets is surprisingly easier to trace formulas in than Excel, despite its other limitations.
Read guideThere’s no native data table feature in Google Sheets, but it’s still possible!
Read guideGoogle Sheets doesn’t natively support Alt keys, but there’s a few workarounds to make it work.
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