alt + = not working in Excel 2010 on my HP laptop

Question

I was using MS Office 2010 on My Lenovo laptop and now I have purchased a new HP laptop, also with MS Office 2010.

I have a problem with Alt+= keys not working for Auto-sum in Excel. All other key combinations are working well.

How can I resolve this issue?

Answer 1

Start Excel in Safe Mode and check if the keyboard shortcut works then. If it does, one of the add-ins you have installed and activated is overriding the built-in shortcut.

To start Excel in Safe Mode, open the Start menu, find the Excel icon, hold down the Ctrl key and click the Excel icon. This will start Excel without any add-ins.

Check if the shortcut works now.

In that case,

• start Excel in normal mode
• disable all add-ins,
• then enable add-ins one by one
• Every time you enable an add-in, close Excel, open it again in normal mode
• then see if the keyboard shortcut works.

Once you have identified the add-in that takes over the keyboard shortcut, disable the add-in. If disabling is not an option, learn how to create an autosum by clicking the autosum icon on the ribbon instead of using the keyboard shortcut.

For more info about safe modes in Office, see here

Answer 2

It's possible some other program has hijacked that shortcut key. To test it, drop this code into VBA:

Sub AssignOnKey()
    Application.OnKey "%=", "doMsg"
End Sub

Function doMsg()
    MsgBox "You pressed ALT + ="
    Application.OnKey "%="
End Function

Run the sub AssignOnKey and go back into Excel. Press Alt+= and see if the message box pops up. If it does, then Excel has "seen" that keyboard input and you can proceed with teylyn's suggestions. If nothing pops up, then Excel did not "see" the input, most likely because some other program has a keyboard hook that's capturing it and not passing it on.

Answer 3

So I was having the same problem, and then I switched the keyboard from "US" to a different keyboard (in my case Canadian Multiligual Standard but it could work with any other one I think), then I switched the keyboard back to "US", and now the function works. No idea how this fixed it, but I hope it works for you as well. Cheers.

Answer 4

It might be a simple mistake. Some keyboards have AltGr key on the right instead of the normal Alt key. AltGr+= would not work in these cases and you'd have to use the left Alt key (normal Alt key) for Auto Sum.

Answer 5

for fixing this problem, you just needed to change your keyboard English(United states). thats all. your problem will get resolved