About Brian DeChesare
Brian DeChesare is the Founder of Mergers & Inquisitions and Breaking Into Wall Street. In his spare time, he enjoys lifting weights, running, traveling, obsessively watching TV shows, and defeating Sauron.
Excel Shortcuts Investment Banking: Quick Tips (10:10)
You’ll get a quick, but very powerful, tip on how to optimize your Excel setup with the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) and custom shortcuts in this tutorial.
Shortcuts Introduced:
These are all BUILT-IN shortcuts:
Alt, T, O: Options Menu
Alt, H, FC: Font Color
Alt, H, FS: Font Size
Alt, H, H: Fill Color
Alt, H, A, C: Center
Alt, H, B: Borders
Alt, H, O, I: AutoFit Column Width
Alt, H, O, W: Column Width
Alt, H, 0: Increase Decimal Places
Alt, H, 9: Decrease Decimal Places
These are the NEW shortcuts you can create via the Quick Access Toolbar:
Alt, 1: Font Color
Alt, 2: Font Size
Alt, 3: Fill Color
Alt, 4: Center
Alt, 5: Borders
Alt, 6: AutoFit Column Width
Alt, 7: Column Width
Alt, 8: Increase Decimal Places
Alt, 9: Decrease Decimal Places
Lesson Outline:
Many Excel shortcuts that you use repeatedly when creating valuations, models and when formatting data are cumbersome to enter.
Something as simple as changing the font color takes 4 keystrokes – Alt, H, F, C – if you use the built-in method for it.
Other common commands such as alignment, fill colors, borders, and column widths also take 3-4 keystrokes.
A more efficient alternative is to set up the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) so that you can access the most common commands with shortcuts like Alt, 1 instead.
You can either import our file (see the link below under RESOURCES) or go to the Options menu (Alt, T, O) and then the Quick Access Toolbar tab, and create the menu yourself.
We recommend setting “Font Color” in position #1, followed by Font Size, Fill Color, Center, Borders, AutoFit Column Width, Column Width, and Increase and Decrease Decimal places.
These are some of the most frequently used commands in Excel, and you’ll save a ton of time with the new, shorter versions.
A command like AutoFit Column Width that used to take 4 keystrokes now takes only 2 (Alt, 6) with this approach.
You might realize 30-40% time savings when working in Excel if you use this full set of shortcuts. They’re especially useful for formatting and analyzing data and doing the initial setup in financial models.
