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Double Underline

27th August 2004, 08:53 am by Dick Kusleika

In Excel, you can hold down the shift key while you click a toolbar button to get different functionality. The one I use most often is the Increase Decimal button. Shift-click that button to decrease the number of decimal places.

One that I didn’t know, until I read a post by Beth Melton, Office MVP, is that shift-clicking the underline button creates a double underline (font underline, not cell border). I probably haven’t used a double underline ten times in my life, but next time I need it, I will complete that operation faster than I ever have.

doubleunder

Which shift-click buttons do you use? Maybe there’s some more I haven’t discovered.

Category: User Interface  |  Comment (RSS)

6 Comments

  1. Bruce Reistle:

    I highlight a graph or a region then hit Shift-Edit and then Copy Picture emerges as an option. I’m not sure if that’s any different than Alt-PrintScreen, but for some reason I prefer Shift-Edit.

    27 August 2004, 9:30 am

  2. Jon Peltier:

    Bruce -

    It’s way better than Alt-PrintScreen. It copies whatever you’ve selected, not just the entire active window, and you have a choice to copy as a bitmap or a picture (metafile). If you copy a chart as a metafile and paste it into PowerPoint, you can scale it continuously without distortion.

    - Jon

    27 August 2004, 2:40 pm

  3. Jon Peltier:

    This is a great technique, which allows you to free up expensive toolbar real estate by only keeping half of a related pair of buttons.

    Here are some pairs I know of (I’d like to say I remember to use them all the time!):

    Increase Decimal - Shift Decrease Decimal
    Sort Ascending - Shift Sort Descending
    Rotate Text Up - Shift Rotate Text Down
    Angle Counterclockwise - Shift Angle Clockwise
    Paste Formatting - Shift Paste Values
    Open - Shift Save
    Page Preview - Shift Print (Print Out Now)
    Align Left - Shift Align Right
    Increase Indent - Shift Decrease Indent

    - Jon

    27 August 2004, 2:53 pm

  4. Emily:

    There already a double underline icon in Excel format

    27 August 2004, 7:30 pm

  5. Doug Glancy:

    I’m days late here, but I just read this and discoverd that it works for the Delete/Insert Columns/Rows and Shift Cells Up/Down icons.

    Yikes, more ways to do things! Not necessarily a good thing, if, like me your easily distracted from the serious work at hand.

    2 September 2004, 12:30 am

  6. Jeff Smith:

    Center Align - Merge and Center
    Clear Contents - Clear Formatting
    Trace Dependents - Remove Dependent Arrows
    (Only works if active cell is a Precedent Cell)

    Above is per Laura Stewart at: http://www.woodyswatch.com/office/archtemplate.asp?v4-n30

    11 June 2005, 3:30 pm

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