In excel, when I use the shortcut Alt+H+O+I to resize the column, it will also paste what I have copied. What shortcut am I hitting accidentally?

Question

I often use the shortcut Alt+H+O+I when I want to autofit the column. Sometimes when I am going quickly, excel resizes the column and then pastes whatever is on the clipboard. Since I have the entire column selected when I do this, excel will sometimes crash from having to paste in an entire column of data, which is frustrating. I must be hitting another shortcut when I do this. Which one is it? (That way I can be careful not to hit it in the future.)

Solution

Only you can say for sure!

My money's on Alt H I Enter

(ie. you're going too fast and missing the O)

...which, if you have a column selected, will insert a column with the data on your clipboard in it.

(tested on MS Excel 2007 12.0.4518.1014)

Alt H I Enter is the hotkey for Insert Cells. Alt+H is the Home tab, I pulls out the 'Insert' dropdown, and Enter (or E) hits the first option, which is 'Insert Cells' or, if you have a column in your clipboard, 'Insert Copied Cells'.

Comments

[cybernetic.nomad]

"pastes whatever is on my keyboard" do you mean "pastes whatever is in my pasteboard"?

[Rey Juna]

What Excel version are you using? Have you recorded any macros that have been assigned a Shortcut key?

[Rajesh Sinha]

I've successfully executed Alt+H+O+I in 2013 & 2016 both to resize the Column while selecting Cell & Entire Column also ,, Excel does't Paste the Copied/Cut value !!

[phuclv]

what does Alt-H-I-Enter execute? On Office 2016 the first option is "Row Height" so it won't paste anything

[Alex M]

Insert Cells. I edited in a screenshot and more detailed explanation. Remember that OP is starting the key sequence having already selected an entire column so I don't think you can get to a state where 'row height' is an option.

[phuclv]

ah Alt-H-I vs Alt-H-O-I. I misread it, the shortcuts are the same on 2016

[Rajesh Sinha]

@AlexM, Alt+H+I+Enter never resizes the Column whether you select cell or entire Column. It's for INSERT CEll/ROW/COLUMN, I've tried in 2013 & 2016 also.

[Alex M]

@RajeshS yes, but the OP is proposing that he's making a typo in his shortcut entry. He's asking for likely suggestions as to what he's hit instead of Alt+H+O+I. This COULD be it.

[user7758051]

Thank you! I believe this is it. What is curious, is that I can undo my last action (getting rid of the pasted data) and the column will still be resized, so it seems as though I am hitting Alt-H-O-I and then Alt-H-I-Enter

[Alex M]

That's.. hard to explain!