Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Creating a Shortcut for Pasting Values.

Creating a Shortcut for Pasting Values

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 20, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016

24

One of the most often-used commands in Excel is the Paste Special option from the Edit menu, where you can figure out exactly how you want information pasted into a worksheet. On the Paste Special dialog box, the Values selection is undoubtedly the one used the most. Since pasting only values in this manner is used so often, you might think that Microsoft would provide a shortcut key to just paste values.

Unfortunately, they don't provide one. There are ways around this, however. One way is to just add a tool to the Quick Access Toolbar that pastes values for you. All you need to do is follow these steps:

  1. Display the Excel Options dialog box. (In Excel 2007 click the Office button and then click Excel Options. In Excel 2010 and later versions, display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
  2. At the left side of the dialog box click Customize (Excel 2007) or Quick Access Toolbar (Excel 2010 and later versions). (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. The Quick Access Toolbar area of the Excel Options dialog box.

  3. Use the Choose Commands From drop-down list to choose All Commands.
  4. In the list of commands, choose Paste Values.
  5. Click the Add button. The command is copied to the right side of the screen.
  6. Click OK.

Now, whenever you want to paste just the values, you can click on the new tool.

If you don't want to use the mouse to paste values, then you can use the tried-and-true keyboard sequence to paste values: Alt, H, V, S, V, Enter. (Or you can use Alt, H, V, V, in newer versions of Excel for the same results.) This sequence selects the menus and dialog box options necessary to paste values.

If you want a shorter keyboard shortcut, the best way to do it is to create a macro that does the pasting for you, and then make sure that you assign a keyboard shortcut to the macro. For instance, create the following simple macro:

Sub PasteVal()
    Selection.PasteSpecial Paste:=xlValues
End Sub

Now, follow these steps:

  1. Press Alt+F8 to display the Macro dialog box.
  2. From the list of available macros, select the PasteVal macro you just created.
  3. Click on Options. Excel displays the Macro Options dialog box. (See Figure 2.)

    4. Figure 2. The Macro Options dialog box.

  4. In the Shortcut Key area, indicate the key you want used with the Ctrl key as your shortcut. For instance, if you want Ctrl+G to execute the macro, then enter a G in the Shortcut Key area.
  5. Click on OK to close the Macro Options dialog box.
  6. Click on Cancel to close the Macro dialog box.

Now, whenever you want to paste values, all you need to do is press Ctrl+G, the macro is run, and the values in the Clipboard are pasted to the selected cell. Of course, the one drawback to this method is that using the macro removes the use of the undo function; so if you make a mistake you'll either have to change it manually or return to your last saved version.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the ExcelTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6283) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Creating a Shortcut for Pasting Values.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Printing a Chart Across Multiple Pages

Wouldn't it be great to have your huge charts print out on multiple pieces of paper that you could then piece together? ...

Discover More

Odd Page Numbers Disappearing

Page numbers in printed pages are often a necessary part of formatting a document. What do you do if your printed output ...

Discover More

Ampersands in Headers and Footers

Add an ampersand to the text in a header or footer and you may be surprised that the ampersand disappears on your ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Dividing Values

When working with large numbers, you may need a way to quickly divide a range of those numbers by a specific value. ...

Discover More

Adjusting Formulas when Pasting

The Paste Special feature in Excel can be used to uniformly adjust values and formulas. This tip shows how powerful this ...

Discover More

Quickly Updating Values

If you need to update a bunch of values in a worksheet by a standard amount, you can use the Paste Special feature of ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is two less than 9?

2022-03-02 10:24:01

J. Woolley

@rjp
Also, look for "Formatting (Paste Formatting)".

2022-03-02 10:21:36

J. Woolley

@rjp
Look for "Values (Paste Values)".

2022-03-01 21:37:11

rjp

I had to reinstall Office 2019, and I no longer see "Paste Value" and "Paste Format" in the All Commands list for the Quick Access Toolbar. Did they disappear?

2021-10-06 19:26:11

Gregg

Using Excel v.2111, most of the Paste options, such as Paste Formulas, Paste Values, Paste Formats, are apparently no longer included on the All Commands list for Quick Access Toolbar customization.

2020-11-20 05:45:15

Si Moss

There are 3 'paste values' options to add to your quick access toolbar in v2019 & 2016...

2020-11-20 05:42:21

Russell Stainer

Just confirming that the legacy "Alt+E, S, V, Enter" keystroke combination, still works in Office 365, as of this date.

2020-04-22 11:39:35

Daniel Gonzalez

Thanks a lot for showing all the available options in a step by step way.

2018-05-06 04:38:51

Danish

Thanks

2018-02-15 11:40:27

David Gray

Scrolling down to the bottom, I just now noticed the comment by Steve Jez about accessing the buttons on the QAT by number. This tip might even merit a nugget of its own.

2018-02-14 21:09:47

Tom

Correction. To be uber efficient. Add a Copy command and Paste command to the Quick Access bar, then just use Alt+5,6.... Boom done!!! Of course, you would change the numbers to the number of the command on your quick access. Your welcome. :)

2018-02-14 20:57:38

Tom

If you add the Paste Values to the quick access at the top then pressing the Alt shortcut gives you direct access to the Paste values, for example in my case: Prec Ctrl+C to copy and Alt+5 to apply the paste value. This is the shortest combo.

2017-08-13 20:14:25

onewhojesussaved

Allen, you rock! Macro to pasteval helps me alot.

2017-07-10 17:51:40

mngreen

Might there be a way of protecting formatting, such that the data/formulas paste, but the "formatting" end of the pasting is effectively disabled because the formatting is "locked"?

thanks again ...

2017-07-10 17:48:25

mngreen

Unfortunately, not having a Ctrl+Z (or alternate) "undo" isn't viable. Restoring manually would be for too time consuming and, in some cases, "impossible" (for all intents and purposes).

I've seen a variety of alternate "paste" methodologies, but the issue I'm facing is multiple users who, almost invariably resort to their own habitual default. There is no way I can reset ***their*** defaults - particularly since they are not the ones that have to deal with the tedious and time consuming restoration of the formats they have blown-up.

Is there any way, through additional code in the otherwise-perfect macro, through an additional macro, or some other arcane and mystical fix, to supplement the provided solution in a way that Ctrl+Z (and/or other "undo" options) can be made to work?

Thanks.

mng

2016-12-21 16:59:49

Gordon Miller

Sub PasteVal()
Selection.PasteSpecial Paste:=xlValues
End Sub
...does not work in Office 365 Pro Excel 2016.

As well, my macros (Record Macro) that worked in 2010 do not work in 2016. Always result in "Runtime error "1004" Pastespecial method of Range class failed."

2016-12-20 01:00:30

David Gray

Terrance's and Stephen's suggestions work well for pasting data between cells, but the topic at hand was general purpose pasting, e. g., from a Web page or the File Explorer, which requires my slightly longer shortcut into the Paste Special dialog box.

2016-12-19 04:10:02

Terence

I like Alt , E, S, V for paste value and
Alt, E, S, T for formats.

You can also do similar to access the quick access toolbar if you added it there Alt and a number key (can assign macros there too)

2016-12-18 14:20:48

David Gray

There is a much shorter path to Paste Special that leverages the Excel 97/2000/2002/2003 keyboard accelerators, many of which still work through at least Excel 2013, and probably 2016 as well.

Unicode Text: ALT E, S, U
Text: ALT E, S, T

2016-12-17 19:11:39

MW

Combine Lanier & Paul's tip:

Right click the cell destination
Mouse over Paste Special
Press V

2016-12-17 17:40:07

Lanier Dodson

In Excel 2013 I just right click the cell where I want to paste and I get a pop-up menu where there are a choice of paste options, including Values. About as simple as it gets.

2016-12-17 13:59:37

Paul Seaman

I use
CTRL + V
CTRL (on its own, this activates the Paste Options menu)
V for Values

So CTRL+V, CTRL, V

2016-12-17 08:14:20

Willy Vanhaelen

Alt,h,v,v
is as far as I know the shortest.

2016-12-17 07:19:33

Steve Jez

If you add the shortcut to the Quick Access Toolbar & move it to the left hand side of the toolbar all you have to do is hit Alt & the number of the button. ie. if you move it to the first button then you just need to hit Alt then 1.

2016-12-17 05:32:52

Stephen Bungard

Alt-E, S, V always works for me.

This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2024 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.