Programming Excel with VBA and .NET

Assign Accelerator and Shortcut Keys

It is standard practice to provide keyboard alternatives to using point-and-click menus. There are two ways to do so:

Accelerator keys

Appear underlined in the menu name. They allow you to activate the menu item by pressing Alt-key. For example Alt-F-S saves an Excel workbook.

Shortcut keys

Appear next to the menu item. They provide direct access to a task listed on a menu. For example, Ctrl-S saves an Excel workbook—the same as Alt-F-S.

To assign an accelerator key to a menu item, use an ampersand (&) in the menu name before the accelerator key. For example, &Run defines R as the accelerator key for the menu.

To assign a short-cut key to a menu item:

1. Choose Tools → Customize → Commands. Excel displays the Commands tab of the Customize dialog box.

2. Right-click on the new menu item and rename to add the short-cut sequence after the menu item’s name. For example, Run &All Ctrl-Shift-R.

3. Close the Customize dialog box.

4. Choose Tools → Macro → Macros to display the Macro dialog box.

5. Select the macro that is assigned to the menu item and click Options.

6. Press the letter to assign as the short-cut. Pressing Shift adds that key to the combination as shown in Figure 19-9.

7. Type a description and press OK twice to close the dialogs.

Figure 19-9. Assigning a shortcut key sequence

Menus often group similar items using separator bars. To start a new group of items by adding ...