Changing Font Size Using a Shortcut Key

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 31, 2018)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


1

One of the interesting shortcut keys in Excel is the one that allows you to change the point size of the selected cells. The shortcut key is Ctrl+Shift+P, but exactly how the shortcut functions depends on what you have displayed on the screen.

This may sound odd, but you can try it out. If you have the Formatting toolbar displayed (as most people do), then pressing Ctrl+Shift+P selects the Font Size control on the toolbar. You can then type the font size you want to use and press Enter. (Pretty handy if you don't want to take your hands off the keyboard.)

If you don't have the Formatting toolbar displayed for some reason, then it seems obvious that the Font Size control can't be selected—it isn't even visible. Instead, pressing Ctrl+Shift+P results in the Font tab of the Format Cells dialog box being displayed.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3373) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Breaking Lines in E-mail

If you are creating an e-mail in Word or are creating text that you will paste into an e-mail document, you may want to ...

Discover More

Specifying an Order for Drawing Objects

Drawing objects can be layered over each other in almost any manner you desire. If you want to change the order in which ...

Discover More

Aligning Numbered Lists on the Period

When you convert a paragraph to a numbered list, Word adds a number at the start of the paragraph, as you would expect. ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Copying Formats to a New Worksheet

Do you want to copy formats from one worksheet to another? You can do so easily by using the Format Painter. It even ...

Discover More

Changing Character Spacing

Excel allows you to adjust spacing between cell walls and the contents of those cells. It does not, however, allow you to ...

Discover More

Converting Forced Text to Numbers

If you have some numbers stored in cells that are formatted as text, you may get some surprises when you try to use those ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 5 + 3?

2018-10-02 12:08:00

Ed Sproull

For me (Office 365, MSO (16.0.10730.20102 32 bit) CTRL-SHIFT-P opens the font dialog and then ALT-S selects the font size drop down. I then use the up and down arrow to select the size I want and ENTER to finish.


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.