Microsoft Excel Mac, keyboard shortcut to edit in cell

Question

In Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011 (14.0.0) how can I modify the enter/return key to edit in cell instead of moving the selection down? I know that in Preferences > Edit you can uncheck the box that says "After pressing RETURN, move selection [Down/Right/Up/Left]" which at least makes it a little less annoying, but this behaviour is still not productive.

I'm aware I could emulate the effect using Automator, macros, Butler and whatnot but I prefer not to use a third-party application to do this. I'm open to modifying the system preferences and I'm comfortable using the Terminal, though.

EDIT: I found out here http://www.electrictoolbox.com/keyboard-shortcuts-excel-mac/ that CTRL+U is the keyboard shortcut for edit in cell. Now if it were somehow possible to remap that to CMD+Return by editing some plist file or writing some magic formula in the Terminal, it would be perfect!

Answer 1

Excel does not offer a direct way to customize this: it is neither a menu command (which would be available to OS X’s system wide shortcuts), nor is it a shortcut configurable via Office’s dedicated Tools → Customize Keyboard… (approximate translation, I’m on a German system) dialog – as you can easily test by calling the dialog and pressing Ctrl+U in the Add Shortcut box (no assigned shortcut will be shown).

You can, however, work around the issue by remapping Cmd+Return to Ctrl+U using Takayama Fumihiko’s KeyRemap4MacBook (which, despite its name, will work on any Mac running OS X 10.4 upwards). You will have to add a private.xml configuration file to KeyRemap4MacBook like documented on the KeyRemap4MacBook site, with its XML content looking like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>Remap "Edit in Cell" in Excel</name>
    <appendix>Use Command+Return instead of Ctrl+U</appendix>
    <identifier>private.app_excel_commandreturn_to_ctrlu</identifier>
    <only>EXCEL</only>
    <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::RETURN, VK_COMMAND, KeyCode::U, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

– this will restrict the remapping to Excel (for a complete list of the keycodes used by KeyRemap4MacBook, see its source code).

Answer 2

Found the answer here: http://mymacslife.blogspot.com/2011/04/mac-excel-2011-carriage-return-in-cell.html

ctrl + option + enter

Answer 3

If it's like Office 2016, try F2

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Keyboard-shortcuts-in-Excel-2016-for-Mac-acf5419e-1f87-444d-962f-4e951a658ccd

Answer 4

It's been a couple years since this question was asked, but it's still a problem. I've written a tutorial on how to deal with this here, but in short: https://gist.github.com/Andrew-Chen-Wang/ea5d0e00a54568048857e63e11194a67

Install Karabiner. Once installed, add a complex modification. Look up the one about Excel (i.e. Mac Excel Commands Built-In Shortcuts). If you can't find it, then follow the tutorial from the gist/link above.

Here's the unoptimized Karabiner json file I have in /Users/<name>/.config/karabiner/assets/complex_modifications/excel.json. Once you add the below into the aforementioned file location, just add it in the Karabiner Elements application:

{
    "title": "Mac Excel Commands Built-In Override Shortcuts",
    "rules": [
        {
            "description": "Change cmd+enter to fn+f2 for excel edit cell",
            "manipulators": [
                {
                    "type": "basic",
                    "from": {
                        "key_code": "return_or_enter",
                        "modifiers": {
                            "mandatory": ["command"]
                        }
                    },
                    "to": [
                        {"key_code": "f2"},
                        {"apple_vendor_top_case_key_code": "keyboard_fn"}
                    ],
                    "conditions": [
                        {
                            "type": "frontmost_application_if",
                            "bundle_identifiers": ["com.microsoft.Excel"]
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "type": "basic",
                    "from": {
                        "key_code": "right_shift",
                        "modifiers": {
                            "mandatory": ["command"]
                        }
                    },
                    "to": [
                        {"key_code": "f2"},
                        {"apple_vendor_top_case_key_code": "keyboard_fn"}
                    ],
                    "conditions": [
                        {
                            "type": "frontmost_application_if",
                            "bundle_identifiers": ["com.microsoft.Excel"]
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "type": "basic",
                    "from": {
                        "key_code": "left_shift",
                        "modifiers": {
                            "mandatory": ["command"]
                        }
                    },
                    "to": [
                        {"key_code": "f2"},
                        {"apple_vendor_top_case_key_code": "keyboard_fn"}
                    ],
                    "conditions": [
                        {
                            "type": "frontmost_application_if",
                            "bundle_identifiers": ["com.microsoft.Excel"]
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Answer 5

Use F2 in Windows.

More hotkeys: http://www.ddmcomputing.com/excel/keys/xlsk06.htm