J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

Old Dog Learns New Trick

I saw this old post at the Ken Puls Blog: Breaking Tab and Enter key navigation. Ken writes:

I've sent a considerable amount of time training my users to enter data in worksheets by navigating to the right by pressing the Tab key and then pressing Enter when they are done working with the row.

For those of you who don't know this, when you work in this way, Excel will return you to the cell just below the one you started tabbing from. Try this:

• Select cell B1, press Tab 3 times and you'll be in cell E1. Press Enter and you will be returned to cell B2.
• Select cell B1, press Tab 3 times, then press the right arrow key and you'll be in cell F1. Pressed Enter and you'll be in cell F2. (This is because you started using different keys to navigate, so the tab caching was lost.)

I tried it, and it didn't work. Then it occurred to me that it might require that the "Move Selection After Enter" setting is turned on (when I install Excel, the first thing I do is turn that setting off). So I turned it on, and Ken's technique works as advertised.

I wonder why I've never heard about that trick? Not that I'll ever use it. I always use the arrow keys when entering data. I find it very annoying when Excel changes the active cell when you press Enter.