Forum Discussion
Use Ctrl-Shift-Z to redo actions
Does anybody know how to make it so I can use Ctrl-Shift-Z to perform the redo action in Excel? It was... doable in Word, but Excel is proving to be a much more difficult challenge. I've tried working with macros to get the action done, but I can't seem to figure out how to get it to do what I want at all. Any solution is more than welcome! It's pretty nuts that in 2022 you still can't edit keyboard shortcuts in Excel, so if I'm missing an obvious solution, please let me know!
6 Replies
You really can’t rebind Excel’s built‑in Redo shortcut. Excel simply doesn’t expose that level of keyboard customization, and forcing it through external tools or registry tweaks turns into a brittle hack. Those kinds of workarounds tend to break after updates, behave inconsistently across workbooks, or cause conflicts with other applications. At that point, you’re spending more time maintaining the workaround than you ever would just using the native shortcut.
Ctrl+Y may not be the shortcut you wish Excel used, but it’s the one the application is designed around. Once your muscle memory adapts, it becomes effortless, and you avoid the long‑term headaches that come with trying to bend Excel into something it wasn’t built to do.
Bombini I couldn't find a way to do it in Excel itself, so I used https://www.autohotkey.com/ to remap the shortcut (I use this program with a lot of stubborn apps).
#IfWinActive ahk_class XLMAIN $^+z::Send ^y #IfWinActiveThis still works but I'd like to add that this command is for Autohotkey v1. It will not work on v2, but it will ask you if you like to download v1 so it will work. If you say yes, it will automatically download v1 and install it for you.
Of course you can. Just follow the steps in this article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/customize-keyboard-shortcuts-9a92343e-a781-4d5a-92f1-0f32e3ba5b4d
Redo action is named "EditRedo" in the command lists. You may need to delete the Ctrl+Shift+Z binding assigned to "RestChar" command to avoid conflict first.
The built-in shortcut is Ctrl+Y.
The problem with using a macro is that running VBA code clears the undo/redo stack, so it defeats the purpose.
I'd stick with Ctrl+Y.
