Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 27, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
One of the most often-used commands in Excel is the Paste Special option from the Edit menu, where you can figure out exactly how you want information pasted into a worksheet. On the Paste Special dialog box, the Values selection is undoubtedly the one used the most. Since pasting only values in this manner is used so often, you might think that Microsoft would provide a shortcut key to, well, just paste values.
Unfortunately, they don't provide one. There are ways around this, however. One way is to just create a toolbar button that pastes values for you. All you need to do is follow these steps:
Figure 1. The Commands tab of the Customize dialog box.
Now, whenever you want to paste just the values, you can click on the new toolbar button.
If you don't want to use the mouse to paste values, then you can use the tried-and-true keyboard sequence to paste values: Alt+E, S, V, Enter. This sequence selects the menus and dialog box options necessary to paste values.
If you want a shorter keyboard shortcut, the best way to do it is to create a macro that does the pasting for you, and then make sure that you assign a keyboard shortcut to the macro. For instance, create the following simple macro:
Sub PasteVal() Selection.PasteSpecial Paste:=xlValues End Sub
Now, follow these steps:
Figure 2. The Macro Options dialog box.
Now, whenever you want to paste values, all you need to do is press Ctrl+G, the macro is run, and the values in the Clipboard are pasted to the selected cell.
Note:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2657) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Creating a Shortcut for Pasting Values.
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