There's very little motivation for Microsoft to do this, but oh how much would I love to have all the keyboard shortcuts for menu and dialog navigation be available in Excel 2008 for the Mac that were available in Office for Windows? Being forced to mouse around in Excel to do simple things like insert a row is absolutely infuriating, when in pre-switch times it would be a split second alt-I-R away. Not having these available is turning my trust swiss army knife of business computing into a dull, oversized butter knife.
(Oh, and have I told you lately that when I start a band it will be called Alabaster Whine? Wanna join? I'm looking for a bass player.)
In Excel 2004 there's a 'customise keyboard' command that let's you define your own shortcuts - a little judicious use of the Excel 2008 equivalent could maybe solve your problem?
Posted by: Arnold Bocklin | May 01, 2008 at 02:12 AM
Ah, that's a good idea. But then I'd have to learn a whole new set of keyboard shortcuts!
Posted by: Michael Sippey | May 01, 2008 at 10:40 AM
Control-I seems to bring up the insert window, then you can choose E for row or N for column (don't ask me how they came up with those shortcuts.) And if you forget and hit Control-I-R it doesn't seem to have a negative affect. It's pretty close and then you don't have to touch the mouse.
Posted by: David Peterson | May 02, 2008 at 05:17 PM
Since alt+I already means something on the system level (as you know, all plain option+something shortcuts mean "I want some sort of strange character"), I'm a bit curious as to how this would work. Maybe by hitting another key beforehand it could work, but then you wouldn't really hit the same shortcut.
Posted by: Jesper | May 03, 2008 at 01:40 AM