When working in an Excel spreadsheet, the best way to move between cells is to use the arrow keys on the keyboard. With these keys that can be used in each direction, you can easily move from one cell to another with the press of a key.
Sometimes, these arrow keys do not work in Excel. In some cases, they will even take you to the next worksheet instead of moving to the next cell on the row. If you are frustrated with this behavior, you may want to know how to solve it.
Fixing the problem that the arrow keys do not work in Excel is actually easier than you think. In most cases, you only need to hit a key to make the keys work as they should.
Disable Scroll Lock
One of the most common reasons that arrow keys don’t work in Excel is because you have enabled the scroll lock feature on your computer. As long as it remains enabled, the keys will not do what they are supposed to do.
If you look at your keyboard, you will see that the scroll lock button lights up. It means that the lock is enabled and you need to turn it off to activate the arrow keys.
If the above reason is the reason why the arrow keys are not working in Excel on your computer, then fixing it is just a problem when pressing a key.
- Just press the scroll lock button on the keyboard and the lock will be disengaged.
- You should find that the scroll lock light is no longer on on your keyboard.
Use The On-Screen Keyboard To Turn Off Scroll Lock
If you use a modern computer with the same modern keyboard, you may notice that there is no scroll lock button on the keyboard. This is because most modern computers have deleted this button, thinking that most users will not use it.
However, Windows has an on-screen keyboard to help you use keys that do not exist on the actual keyboard. You can also use it when the actual keyboard is damaged or not working properly.
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You can use this on-screen keyboard to cancel the scroll lock.
- Open the Start Menu and search for and launch On-Screen Keyboard. It should open.
- On the right side of the keyboard, you will find all the lock keys. There will be a key called ScrLk, which can help you enable and disable scroll lock on your PC. Click on it and if you enable it earlier, it will disable the scroll lock.
Fix Arrow Keys Not Working With An AppleScript On Mac
Mac keyboards generally don’t have a scroll lock button, so if you are a Mac user, disabling this feature is a difficult task for you. However, there is a solution to using AppleScript to troubleshoot Excel on Mac.
When you use Excel on your computer, the solution is to create an AppleScript and run it. Then it will do whatever it takes to make the arrow keys work in the Excel program.
Creating and running AppleScript may seem a bit technical, but it is actually very easy to do.
- Click on Launchpad, search for TextEdit, and open it.
- Click on the File menu at the top and select New to create a new document.
- Copy the following code and paste it into your document.
set returnedItems to (display dialog "Press OK to send scroll lock keypress to Microsoft Excel or press Quit" with title "Excel Scroll-lock Fix" buttons {"Quit", "OK"} default button 2)
set buttonPressed to the button returned of returnedItems
if buttonPressed is "OK" then
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
activate
end tell
tell application "System Events"
key code 107 using {shift down}
end tell
activate
display dialog "Scroll Lock key sent to Microsoft Excel" with title "Mac Excel Scroll-lock Fix" buttons {"OK"}
end if
- Press the Command + S keys to save the file.
- Enter FixExcelKeys.applescript as the name of the file and save it.
- Launch your spreadsheet in Excel.
- Double-click on the newly created AppleScript file and it should fix the issue for you.
Enable Sticky Keys
In most cases, the above method should solve the problem of arrow keys not working in Excel. However, if you are unlucky with them, you may want to try a few more times to see if they can help you solve the problem.
One method is to enable the sticky key feature on a Windows computer. Although it is not directly related to Excel or the arrow keys, it is worth switching it to see if it can solve the problem.
- Search for Control Panel using Cortana search and launch it.
- Click on Ease of Access Center.
- Click on Make the keyboard easier to use.
- Enable the option that says Turn on Sticky Keys and click on OK.
Disable Add-Ins
Add-ins can help you make better use of Excel, but sometimes they can also cause conflicts. If you have any plugins installed, you may need to disable them and see if the arrow keys start working.
It is very easy to disable add-ins in the Excel software.
- Launch Excel on your computer.
- Click on the File menu at the top and select Options from the left sidebar.
- Click on Add-ins in the left sidebar to view your Excel add-ins settings.
- Select Excel Add-ins from the dropdown menu and click on Go.
- Deselect all the add-ins and click on OK.
- Do the above steps for every option in the dropdown menu so that all of your add-ins are disabled.
We hope your arrow keys not working in Excel issue is now resolved. And if so, we’d like to know what method worked for you. Let us know in the comments below.
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