Tab Down?

[SteveK]

Is there a way to change the behavior of the Tab key so that rather moving
to the next cell to the right of the current one, it instead moves down to
the cell below the current one? I find that I want to Tab down more often
than Tab right and the left hand is usually better situated to hit the Tab
key than it is to move across the keyboard to find the Down arrow.

SteveK

 

[Bob Phillips]

Steve,

Goto menu Tools>Options>Edit, select the Move selection after Enter, and
pick your direction.

--

HTH

RP
(remove nothere from the email address if mailing direct)

 

[Harlan Grove]

SteveK wrote...

Is there a way to change the behavior of the Tab key so that rather moving
to the next cell to the right of the current one, it instead moves down to
the cell below the current one? I find that I want to Tab down more often
than Tab right and the left hand is usually better situated to hit the Tab
key than it is to move across the keyboard to find the Down arrow.

The [Tab] key is mapped as ActiveCell.Next.Activate, and the .Next
property of any range is either the next cell to the right (unprotected
worksheets) or the next unlocked cell to the right (protected
worksheets). I don't believe it's possible to change the .Next
property's behavior to make it travel downwards rather than rightwards.

You could change the [Tab] and [Shift]+[Tab] keys' behaviors using VBA,
but if you need to use VBA anyway, you may be better off using a macro
to select a multiple area range in the order you want to access the
cells. Once you've selected cells in your desired access order, the tab
key will move between cells in that order.

For example, if you want to travel from C2 to C6 to C10 to D2 to D10
then back to C2, select C2, hold down the [Ctrl] key and click on C6,
C10, D2, D10 in that order. Then run the menu command Insert > Name >
Define and give this multiple area range the worksheet-level name
EntryCells. Then use the following macro to select those cells.


Sub SelectEntryCells()
ActiveSheet.Names("EntryCells").RefersToRange.Select
End Sub

 

[Harlan Grove]

Bob Phillips wrote...

Steve,

Goto menu Tools>Options>Edit, select the Move selection after Enter, and
pick your direction.

....

Doesn't make the [Enter] key behave like the [Tab] key. If C2, C6 and
D2 were the only unlocked cells in a protected worksheet, and C2 were
the active cell, pressing [Enter] would make C3 rather than C6 the
active cell. If all the unlocked cells were adjacent, I can't see why
anyone would screw around with [Tab] or [Enter] rather than just using
the arrow keys.

 

[Don Guillett]

Here is the general idea to remap a key to run a macro.
Sub tabkey()
Application.OnKey "{TAB}", "DOIT" ' ActiveCell.Offset(1).Select
'Application.OnKey "{TAB}" 'To change to default
End Sub
Sub DOIT()
ActiveCell.Offset(1).Select
End Sub

 

[Gord Dibben]

Which will not affect the Tab key direction but does work with the ENTER key.


Gord Dibben Excel MVP

 

[RagDyeR]

One way to make the Tab key move the focus down instead of across, is to
select a range.

Don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for, but it does do what
you asked, to a certain extent.

Click in a cell and drag down 5 or 10 rows, to create a selected range.
The focus is in the first cell, denoted as being white.
Key in an entry.
Hit <Tab>
Focus moves down to stay within the selected range.
Continue as needed, and then click "away", to unselect the range.

This temporary range selection to contain the focus also works with <Enter>,
where you could select across columns, within a row, and make the <Enter>
key act as a <Tab>.
--

HTH,

RD
==============================================
Please keep all correspondence within the Group, so all may benefit!
==============================================

Is there a way to change the behavior of the Tab key so that rather moving
to the next cell to the right of the current one, it instead moves down to
the cell below the current one? I find that I want to Tab down more often
than Tab right and the left hand is usually better situated to hit the Tab
key than it is to move across the keyboard to find the Down arrow.

SteveK