12 Basic Shortcuts That Will Make You An Excel Guru And Add Hours To Your Life

Flickr / Microsoft Sweden

Bill Gates using an early version of Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is a crucial tool for anyone operating in modern business. 

But there are risks.

For one thing, it can be intimidating for beginners.

Furthermore, Excel errors can have devastating consequences, such as the one that undermined one of the most famous economics papers of all time.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

There are a few basic skills and shortcuts that can really save you a bunch of time.

It takes years to become an Excel expert, but if you're trying to justify putting it on your resume you should at least know these 12 shortcuts.

Ctrl + Shift + $ makes the number format into currency, with commas at the thousands and two decimal places

For example, =LEFT(B2,12) outputs the 12 leftmost characters from the string in box B2

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