Clever Clogs tip # 667
12 August 2021


Quickly jump between multiple worksheets (Microsoft Excel) *

Microsoft recently announced the introduction of a navigation pane in Excel. It will show you a vertical list of your sheets and promises to make accessing tables, pivot tables and charts easier. (See Microsoft's Tech Community for full details.)

No idea when it's going to be rolled out to Microsoft 365 subscribers, but in the meantime I would like to remind you of the following two navigation tricks ...

  1. Tip 11: Right-click the bottom left hand corner next to the first sheet. (Did you ever notice it gives you that tip?)
  2. Tip 37: press CTRL + PgUp (PageUp) and CTRL + PgDn (PageDown) to move to the next or previous sheet in a workbook.

But did you know that in the Activate sheet dialog box you can simply type the letter of the sheet you want to jump to?

Here's how:

  1. Right-click the bottom left hand corner next to the first sheet. (Did you ever notice it gives you that tip?)
  2. Type the first letter of the sheet you want to jump to. For example, type the letter C to select the sheet named Canada Sales.
  3. If you have more sheets starting with the same letter and it doesn't highlight the one you want to open, simply type the same letter once more (or twice or thrice etcetera ;) (By the way, this trick also works if you want to find items in a large folder - or on a messy desktop.)
  4. Press ENTER.

I'd love to know what your favourite way of navigating in Excel is.

Related tips

  1. Navigating between worksheets - tip_11.html
  2. Quickly moving between multiple worksheets - tip_37.html
  3. How to find items on a messy desktop - tip_375.php

PS Massive thank you to those who booked one (or all! ;) of the 60-minute webinars and saw the hints, tips and time-saving shortcuts in action. Did you know I also offer one hour Further Use webinars? They're still only 24 pounds!


* Unless stated otherwise this tip is written for Microsoft 365 desktop apps and Windows 10 users, but might also be useful in Office 2010, 2013 and 2016.