BASICS
Excel Right-click menu – Explained
Are you right-click or keyboard shortcut type of person?
If you believe that the computer mouse is the invention of the century, then you must know what does appear when you right-click on the Excel grid.
In Excel, when we do a right-click, we usually get a menu.
Bunch of menus appear in different areas of the Excel environment, but the one mostly used is the one which appears when we right-click on the Excel grid. And today we are about to explain it.
Take a look at it. Isn’t it a real top-value shortcut to the most frequently used Excel commands?
It consists of two parts. Top area is reserved mostly for cell formatting options such as:
- Font name
- Font size
- Font type – Bold, Italic
- Font alignment – Center
- Font color
- Cell color
- Cell borders
- Increase/decrease number decimals
- Number formatting – currency, percentage, comma
- Format Painter
- Merge & Center
Wow, such a lot of options in the so small menu area. I am sure you now ask yourself why you don’t use it more often.
There are five groups of the lower menu area controls which we will explain right away.
Group #1 right-click commands – Cut, Copy, Paste, Paste Special
These are regular commands for transferring data from one place to another.
Group #2 right-click commands – Insert, Delete, Clear Contents
- Insert – inserts new cell, column or row
- Delete – deletes new cell, column or row
- Clear Contents – deletes the selected cell/range content
When you click on “Insert” or “Delete” command further menus will appear respectively. Here you can control what will happen with the surrounding area of the cell you want to change.
Group #3 right-click commands – Filter, Sort
These two commands are the only ones in the menu which, when clicked, trigger sub-menus with additional controls.
In Filter sub-menu you can find variations of filter controls such as:
- Filter by selected cell’s Value
- Filter by selected cell’s Color
- Filter by selected cell’s Font color
- Filter by selected cell’s Icon
In Sort sub-menu you can find variations of sorting controls such as:
- Sort A-Z
- Sort Z-A
- Put selected Cell Color on Top
- Put selected Font Color on Top
- Put selected Cell Icon on Top
- Custom Sort
“Custom sort” is probably the mostly used command from this list. When you click on it, further window will appear where you can setup levels and criteria for data sorting.
Group #4 right-click commands – Insert Comment
In this group, this is the only command you will find. Each cell has the ability to store the comment info. In this way users can additionally provide the information of their choice related to the cell data.
Why this is important and how you can make comments which are friendly for readers you can learn in How to format comments in Excel?
Group #5 right-click commands – Format Cells, Pick from drop-down List, Name a Range, Hyperlink
This group of commands on the very bottom of the menu contains diverse set of tools.
Format Cells – This command opens new window with many basic controls for adjusting how your cells look like.
Pick from drop-down List – This feature is some kind if instant drop-down menu. If you have already made some inputs in the excel grid near the currently selected cell, it gives you the chance to chose some of the inputs from the list and use it again in current cell. Very handy isn’t it, but not used so often.
Name a Range – The shortcut to the window “New Name” where you can, after you select certain range, give it a specific name according to your needs. Here is how this window looks like.
Hyperlink – This is the option which allows you to set a link to a text inside the cell you selected.
We hope that now you are ready to go and save some valuable time, by using this Right-click menu equipped with plenty of tools.
