If you cannot justify paying for Microsoft Office, Google Sheets is the sensible answer: it is free with the Google account you already have for Gmail, it runs in a browser with nothing to install, and it works on a business-centre computer as well as your own. These Google Sheets shortcuts cover the things you actually do when keeping stock, sales and expense records.

One important thing before we start. Sheets and Excel share many conventions, but not all of them, and assuming they are identical is the most common mistake people make. The biggest difference is covered right below, and there is a full comparison section further down. Google’s own shortcut reference could not be read by our verification tools when this guide was written, so every Google Sheets shortcut here is limited to long-established, universally documented combinations rather than anything obscure or version-specific.

The One Difference to Learn First: Paste Values Only

In Google Sheets, Ctrl + Shift + V pastes values only — the results, without the formulas behind them.

In Excel, that same combination pastes as plain text, and pasting values is a completely different sequence. If you have come from Excel, or from our Excel keyboard shortcuts guide, this is the one piece of muscle memory that will actively mislead you.

Why does it matter so much? Because pasting a column of calculated figures into a report normally drags the formulas along — and then the numbers change when anything else on the sheet changes. Pasting values only freezes them. For anyone keeping business records, that is the difference between figures that stay put and figures that quietly move under you.

The Google Sheets Shortcuts to Learn First

Learn these twelve and you will handle most of what a small business spreadsheet requires.

#	Keys	What it does
1	Ctrl + Arrow key	Jump to the edge of the current block of data
2	Ctrl + End	Jump to the last cell with content
3	Ctrl + Space	Select the entire column
4	Shift + Space	Select the entire row
5	Ctrl + Shift + V	Paste values only
6	Ctrl + Shift + $	Apply currency format
7	Ctrl + ;	Insert today’s date
8	Ctrl + H	Find and replace
9	Ctrl + D	Fill down
10	Ctrl + Z	Undo
11	Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V	Copy and paste
12	Ctrl + S	Save — though Sheets saves itself as you type

Note number twelve: Sheets saves continuously, so you rarely need it. The habit of pressing it does no harm, but it is Excel muscle memory rather than a necessity here.

Navigating Without Scrolling

This is where the biggest time saving lives. A sheet of four hundred stock entries is unworkable with the scroll bar and perfectly manageable with these keys.

Keys	What it does
Arrow keys	Move one cell up, down, left or right
Ctrl + Arrow key	Jump to the edge of the current data region
Ctrl + Home	Move to the beginning of the sheet
Ctrl + End	Move to the last cell with content
Home	Move to the beginning of the row
Page Up / Page Down	Move one screen up or down
Alt + Page Up / Alt + Page Down	Move one screen left or right
Ctrl + Page Up / Ctrl + Page Down	Move to the previous or next sheet
Tab / Shift + Tab	Move one cell right or left
Enter / Shift + Enter	Move one cell down or up

Sheets stores your records in a data region — a solid block of filled cells surrounded by empty ones. Ctrl + Arrow moves you to the edge of that block in one keystroke, which is what makes a long list navigable. If you have several tabs, one per month or one for sales and one for expenses, Ctrl + Page Down flips between them.

Selecting Cells, Rows and Columns

Keys	What it does
Ctrl + Space	Select the entire column
Shift + Space	Select the entire row
Ctrl + A	Select all
Shift + Arrow key	Extend the selection by one cell
Ctrl + Shift + Arrow key	Extend the selection to the last filled cell
Ctrl + Shift + Home	Extend the selection to the beginning of the sheet
Ctrl + Shift + End	Extend the selection to the last cell with content

Ctrl + Space is the answer to a question people ask constantly. To select a whole column, click any cell in it and press Ctrl + Space. To select only the filled part rather than all thousand rows, use Ctrl + Shift + Arrow instead — it stops at the last entry.

Formatting Your Figures

Suppose you have just typed a column of amounts in Ghana cedis and they are sitting there as plain numbers. Select the column with Ctrl + Space, then press Ctrl + Shift + $. Two keystrokes and the whole column reads as money.

Keys	What it does
Ctrl + B / Ctrl + I / Ctrl + U	Bold / italic / underline
Ctrl + Shift + $	Apply currency format
Ctrl + Shift + %	Apply percentage format
Ctrl + Shift + #	Apply date format
Ctrl + Shift + !	Apply number format with two decimals and a thousands separator
Ctrl + Shift + . (full stop)	Increase the font size
Ctrl + Shift + , (comma)	Decrease the font size
Alt + Shift + 1	Apply the first (default) text style

Good news on this one: the number-format combinations above work the same way in Excel, so they are among the few Google Sheets shortcuts that transfer cleanly from one to the other. If you learned them in Excel, they will not let you down here.

Dates and Daily Records

If you keep a daily sales log — one of the most common uses of a spreadsheet in Ghana — these two save real effort. Ctrl + ; inserts today’s date, and Ctrl + Shift + ; inserts the current time. Both insert fixed values rather than formulas, which is exactly what you want: a log entry should keep the date it was created, not update itself every time you open the sheet.

Editing and Filling Data

Keys	What it does
Ctrl + C / Ctrl + X / Ctrl + V	Copy / cut / paste
Ctrl + Shift + V	Paste values only
Ctrl + Z / Ctrl + Y	Undo / redo
Ctrl + Enter	Fill the selected range with what you have typed
Ctrl + D	Fill down
Ctrl + R	Fill right
Delete	Clear the contents of the selected cells
Ctrl + F	Find in the sheet
Ctrl + H	Find and replace
Ctrl + K	Insert a link

Three of these deserve a note. Ctrl + D fills a formula down a column without dragging the fill handle — the same result in a fraction of the time. Ctrl + H replaces a repeated mistake throughout the sheet, such as a customer’s name spelled wrongly in twenty rows. And Ctrl + Enter fills an entire selected range with one entry at once, which is useful when you need the same value in many cells. These editing Google Sheets shortcuts are the ones you will reach for every single day.

Inserting Rows and Columns — the Honest Answer

You will find websites listing a keyboard shortcut for inserting a row. We are not going to give you one, because we could not confirm it to the standard we apply to everything else here, and a wrong shortcut is worse than no shortcut.

What certainly works: right-click the row number and choose Insert 1 row above or Insert 1 row below. In Google Sheets you can also hover over the row number, click the small triangle that appears, and choose where to insert. For a column, right-click the column letter and choose Insert 1 column left or right. It takes two clicks and it never fails.

If someone shows you a key combination for this and it works, use it. Until then, the menu is reliable.

How Google Sheets Shortcuts Differ From Excel

This is the section most guides skip, and the one most likely to save you frustration. Here is the honest comparison.

Action	Google Sheets	Excel
Paste values only	Ctrl + Shift + V	Ctrl + Alt + V, then V
Paste as plain text	Not this key	Ctrl + Shift + V
Currency format	Ctrl + Shift + $	Ctrl + Shift + $ — same
Insert today’s date	Ctrl + ;	Ctrl + ; — same
Select the whole column	Ctrl + Space	Ctrl + Space — same
Fill down	Ctrl + D	Ctrl + D — same
Open Paste Special	Not the same sequence	Ctrl + Alt + V
Save manually	Rarely needed — Sheets saves itself	Ctrl + S, and you will need it

So the picture is reassuring on balance. Most of the common Google Sheets shortcuts are identical to Excel’s, and the ones that are not cluster around pasting and saving — which is precisely where people get caught out. Google publishes a separate reference for the Docs editors if you also use Google Docs, where the conventions are similar to Sheets.

Two Other Things That Are Different

Autosave changes your habits. Sheets has no “save” step in the usual sense; every change is stored as you make it. That removes a whole category of anxiety, but it also means there is no “close without saving” — undo and version history are your recovery tools instead.

Sharing replaces file transfer. Rather than emailing a file back and forth and ending up with three versions, you share the sheet by link. A partner, a family member or an accountant sees the same live document. For a small business, this is one of the genuine advantages of working in Sheets rather than on a desktop file.

What Does Not Work on a Phone

Google Sheets works well on a phone, but most of these Google Sheets shortcuts do not, because a phone has no physical Ctrl key. If you are reading this on a mobile device, these combinations are for a laptop or desktop computer in a browser.

The actions are still available — you reach them through the menus and the toolbar rather than the keyboard. On an Android or iPhone, Google documents its own separate mobile shortcuts, which are different again. What carries over is the thinking: tabs you can move between, columns you can select, formatting you can apply. The keys change; the ideas do not.

One genuinely useful thing for anyone with unreliable connectivity: Sheets has an offline mode that lets you keep working without a connection and syncs when you are back online. It is worth turning on if your network is unpredictable.

If you also use a desktop browser heavily, our guide to browser shortcuts covers tabs and navigation, and if you have Excel as well, the Excel keyboard shortcuts guide is the companion to this one. For the wider toolkit, see our guide to free productivity apps for small business, and the general computer shortcuts hub covers the fundamentals across Windows and Mac.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I paste values only in Google Sheets?

Copy the cells, then press Ctrl + Shift + V. This pastes the results without the formulas behind them, so the figures stop recalculating when the rest of the sheet changes. Note that this is different from Excel, where Ctrl + Shift + V pastes as plain text and pasting values is a separate sequence.

How do I select an entire column in Google Sheets?

Click any cell in the column and press Ctrl + Space. For a whole row, use Shift + Space. If you want only the filled part of the column rather than every row, use Ctrl + Shift + Arrow key, which stops at the last entry.

How do I insert today’s date in Google Sheets?

Press Ctrl + ; to insert today’s date, or Ctrl + Shift + ; for the current time. Both insert fixed values rather than formulas, so the date stays as the date you entered it rather than changing every time you open the sheet.

Do Excel keyboard shortcuts work in Google Sheets?

Most of the common ones do — currency formatting, selecting a column, filling down, inserting the date and undo all work the same way. The differences cluster around pasting and saving: paste-values uses a different key in each, and Sheets saves automatically so the save shortcut is rarely needed. Check the comparison table above before relying on a key you learned in Excel.

How do I insert a row in Google Sheets?

Right-click the row number and choose Insert 1 row above or Insert 1 row below. You can also hover over the row number and click the small triangle that appears. We have deliberately not given a keyboard shortcut for this, because we could not verify one — and a wrong shortcut wastes more time than a reliable two-click menu.

Is Google Sheets as good as Excel?

For keeping stock, sales and expense records, Sheets does everything most small businesses need, and it is free. Excel is stronger for very large data sets, heavy formulas and advanced analysis. One honest point for job seekers: Excel is still the spreadsheet named most often in formal job adverts, so if you are building skills for employment, Sheets is an excellent free starting point but Excel remains worth learning.

Conclusion: Free, and Genuinely Enough

Google Sheets shortcuts will not make you a spreadsheet expert, but five of them will make you dramatically faster at keeping records: Ctrl + Arrow to stop scrolling, Ctrl + Space to select a column, Ctrl + Shift + $ to format it as cedi amounts, Ctrl + Shift + V to paste figures that stay put, and Ctrl + ; to date the entry.

Learn those five this week. Then add one a week from the tables above, and remember the one trap: pasting values works differently here than in Excel. Get that right and the rest of these Google Sheets shortcuts will serve you for years — on a free account, in a browser, on whatever computer you happen to be sitting at.

Which of these did you not know before today? Tell us in the comments, and share this with anyone still scrolling through their stock sheet by hand.