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Selecting cell content (Ctrl + A) doesn't work in Excel 2016 (in 2013 neither)

Anonymous
2016-05-12T17:12:07+00:00

Hi,

Since Office 2013 I'm very frustrated by lack of the critical feature in Excel - selecting cell content.

I was hoping Microsoft will solve it in Office 2016, but I was clearly wrong after I tested the trial version. I wanted to buy Office 2016, but now - no, thank you.

The issue is, selecting cell content with Ctrl + A is not possible, like it was before Office 2013.

Test it yourself:

  1. Enter anything into an empty cell or activate (edit) and existing cell - and stay there without pressing Enter.
  2. Press Ctrl + A (select all short cut). Nothing happens.

Expected behaviour:

The cell content should be selected, to enable copying it by Ctrl + C.

Of course I can copy the whole cell with Ctrl + C, but only when I'm not in it (I'm not editing the cell). But then the cell is being copied with the whole format and style. I don't want to copy the whole cell, just the plain content!

It's a crucial feature and without it Excel is simply painful and useless.

Selecting the cell content by a mouse is obviously not an option. Unfortunately, even macros can't solve this issue, because it's not possible to "override" Ctrl + A in Excel. It's possible to set a macro for Ctrl + Shift + A (for instance), which does what Ctrl + A should do inside a cell, but it's very confusing, because Ctrl + A works well in all other apps (including Word and apps from outside Office package).

Even OpenOffice allows for Ctrl + A inside a cell! But in Excel Ctrl + A does... nothing!

I tested it on multiple computers and it's clearly Office's fault.

Why Microsoft removed this option from Office (made this "bug") and didn't notice its lack even in 2016?

Maybe the Office developers use Macs and they don't use Ctrl at all? What possibly can be the reason?

Where can I submit this issue, to someone responsible for Office to notice it?

I would really like to use Office, but it's impossible with lack of Ctrl + A.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-01-13T23:20:49+00:00

    You clearly haven't understood the issue.

    It is not about Ctrl + A when you're outside a cell, but when you're editing a cell content. For example, when you double click the cell.

    When you're "in" a cell, Ctrl + A does nothing, nothing at all. The expected behaviour is to select the cell content, so I can copy it without formatting.

    When I select a cell manually (by a mouse for example) and copy it (Ctrl + C), I can paste it somewhere else, or to another program like Word. However, the copied content includes the formatting (like font size, background, color, border etc.), instead of the cell content (the pure text/number only).

    The only way to copy the pure text/number only from a cell, is to double click, then select the text by a mouse, then copy it.

    Older versions of Excel allowed to do this, Open/Libe/Star Office also supports this, all other programs in the world respect the Ctrl + A shortcut as well. All except Excel...

    Did you get it now or should I create a video for you?

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-01-22T17:10:39+00:00

    The shortcut will not work on EDIT mode Excel 2016, it will work on READY mode. By the way the Excel Online supports as you are talking.

    70+ people found this answer helpful.
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  3. Anonymous
    2016-05-23T08:45:31+00:00

    Doesn't work in Excel 2010 either.

    50+ people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2016-05-23T09:45:13+00:00

    Hi,

    I have multiple versions of Excel and CTRL A behaves the same in all of them. In an empty area of a worksheet it will select all cells and in an area with data it will select the current region and that's how it's designed to work. Straight from Excel help.

    CTRL+A Selects the entire worksheet. <br><br><br>If the worksheet contains data, CTRL+A selects the current region. Pressing CTRL+A a second time selects the current region and its summary rows. Pressing CTRL+A a third time selects the entire worksheet.<br><br><br>When the insertion point is to the right of a function name in a formula, displays the<br>Function Arguments dialog box.<br><br><br>CTRL+SHIFT+A inserts the argument names and parentheses when the insertion point is to the right of a function name in a formula.

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
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