Inserting Columns and Rows - Excel 2007 - JAWS V15

Launching the Insert Dialog Box in Excel 2007 Directly

Danger! Danger! I feel a bit of an Excel flavour for my next couple of posts! So, to kick us off, here is a nifty little keystroke for what is a common task: inserting new rows and columns.

Let's set the scene, you're navigating through a bunch of data in Excel and to be able to squeeze some new data in, you're going to have to insert either a new blank column or row, or just shift the existing data into an adjacent column column or row. But.. where was that ribbon option again? Or was it somewhere in the applications or context menu...?

If you want to be really slick, you don't head to the ribbon. You use the hotkey of CONTROL NUMBERPAD PLUS or, alternatively, CONTROL SHIFT EQUALS.

When you use this keystroke, focus will move to the newly launched Insert dialog box. From there, you have the following four options arranged vertically in a series of radio buttons.

Insert Dialog Box Options

Option	Keystroke	Explanation
Shift Cells Right	ALT I	Moves the current cell (or a selected range of cells) right, leaving the current cell(s) empty.
Shift Cells Down	ALT D	Moves the current cell (or a selected range of cells) down, leaving the current cell(s) empty.
Entire Row	ALT R	Inserts a whole new row at the current cursor position.
Entire Column	ALT C	Inserts a whole new column at the current cursor position.

There you go, now you can insert columns and rows or shift data around at a snap - all thanks to the crafty hotkey of CONTROL PLUS.