Alt, E, S, V, Enter (Mac: Ctrl+ Cmd+ V).In the video above I share 5 keyboard shortcuts (plus a bonus) to paste values. As I mentioned before, the most common we use is Paste Values. There are keyboard shortcuts for all of the Paste Special commands.

The Paste Special… button on those menus opens the full Paste Special Menu. We can also access some of the Paste Special commands from the Home tab and right-click menu in Excel. Paste Values is one of the many pasting options on the Paste Special menu. In the first example above, the blank cells have the default General format, and that is why there is no number formatting applied when we paste values. When we paste values, any existing formatting in the paste range will NOT change. In the image above, the Scenario 1 column already contained both cell formatting (colors) and number formatting. Pasting values will not change any existing formatting that is applied to the cell/range. One common use is for scenario analysis where we want to “freeze” numbers that are results of formulas and place them in some blank cells.Īnother common use is when we want to paste numbers or text into a range that already contains formatting. There are a TON of reasons to paste values. This allows us to extract the numbers or text from cells. Paste Values will paste the values ONLY of the copied range WITHOUT formulas and formatting. Copying and pasting values is probably one of the most common tasks we do in Excel.

Mac paste shortcut icon