Keyboard shortcuts for moving between application and Task Panes in Excel (and other Microsoft 365 applications) and closing them again

In Office 365 many useful and exciting new features are now delivered in Task Panes. I am thinking for example of the "Navigation Pane", the "Advanced Formula Editor" in Excel Labs and the "Code Editor" for Office Scripts. I am very excited about using these and these have quickly become part of my daily Excel workflow.

However as an Excel power user with a mostly keyboard-only way of interacting with Excel, I found myself getting frustrated by the lack of keyboard shortcuts for moving between a Task Pane and the main Excel Grid. So for example while ALT+W,K will open the Navigation Pane, how do I close it again? Similarly, ALT+H,Y1 will bring up the Advanced Formula Editor but how do I switch back to the Excel Grid?

Searching on the Microsoft Community Answers I also didn't find a solution to this problem. I found this thread (How to close Office Task Pane App in Excel) but that never received a working answer and that thread is closed.

However after some more searching, I did find a satisfactory solution and am sharing it here for the benefit of others who may be looking for the same.

My main source is: Using Keyboard Only Navigation in Word, Excel and PowerPoint (Part 3: Task Panes)

Summary tl;dr:

• Move from Excel Grid to open Task Pane: F6,F6
• Move from Task Pane to Excel Grid: SHIFT+F6,SHIFT+F6
• Switch between multiple Task Panes: F6,Arrow Keys,Enter
• Close a Task Pane: CTRL+SPACE,C

I hope that helps!