General and navigation

File management

This section will give you the commands for opening and saving an Excel file. You may also need to learn some commands for navigating folders in Windows Explorer.

Working with files
Outcome Keyboard Dragon command
Open Excel
  1. Windows key
  2. Type Excel
  3. Enter
 Open Excel
Create new workbook
  1. Shift + Tab until New blank workbook is in focus
  2. Enter
 New blank workbook
Open existing workbook
  1. Shift + Tab (6 times or until Home is in focus)
  2. ↓ x2 until Open is in focus
  3. Enter
  1. Open
  2. Browse
Save workbook
  1. Ctrl + S
  2. Type file name
  3. Tab to move to location options
  4. Enter when focus is on Save
  1. Save
  2. Dictate file name
  3. More options to select a location
  4. Save
Close Excel Alt + F4 Close Excel

Navigating a workbook

There are many different ways that you may want to move around a worksheet and select cells. Here are the most common.

Navigation
Outcome Keyboard Dragon command
Move to a different worksheet Ctrl + PgDn / PgDn Say what you see
Move to a cell ↓ / ↑ / ← / → Go to cell [ref]
You can use A1, B2, etc or Alpha 1, Bravo 2, etc
Select range of cells
  1. Navigate to the first cell in the range
  2. Shift + ↓ to select vertically
  3. Shift + → to select horizontally
 Select cell [ref] to cell [ref]
Select whole row Shift + Spacebar Select row [number]
Select whole column Ctrl + Spacebar Select column [letter]
Change zoom level
  1. Alt to move to ribbon
  2. W to open View ribbon
  3. Q to open Zoom options
  4. ↓ to select desired zoom level
  5. Tab to move to Okay
  6. Enter to activate selected zoom
 Zoom to [number] percent
Clicky