# RibbonKeys

> RibbonKeys is a menu-bar app for the Mac that brings the Alt-key ribbon shortcuts (KeyTips) of Excel for Windows to Excel for Mac. Tap the Option key, letters appear over Excel's ribbon, and typing the Windows sequence presses the button: Option H B A draws all borders, Option H O I fits the column width, Option E S opens Paste Special.

## Who it is for

People who learned Excel on Windows, know its Alt-key sequences by heart, and now work in Excel on a Mac.

## What it does

- Tap Option (⌥) by itself while Excel is in front, or hold it down with the first letter. Every ribbon tab gets a letter: H Home, N Insert, P Page Layout, M Formulas, A Data, R Review, W View, L Developer.
- Type the tab's letter and every control on the tab gets its letters, the same ones as on Windows. The last letter presses the button.
- A dropdown's items get letters too, and so does every submenu below it. Esc steps back one level.
- It covers the tabs Home, Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, Review, View and Developer, and the tabs Excel adds for what is selected: Table, Chart Design and Format, Pivot Table Analyse and Design, Shape Format, Picture Format, SmartArt Design and Format, Header & Footer, Sparkline, Timeline, Slicer and Equation.
- It also covers the menu keys of Excel 2003 (such as E S for Paste Special), the Quick Access Toolbar (1, 2, 3 from the left) and the controls of dialogs.
- The Draw and Automate tabs have their letters too, but have not been tested yet: they need a Microsoft 365 subscription.
- Ctrl+U underlines, as on Windows; on the Mac it otherwise edits the cell. A switch in the app's menu turns this off. Excel for Mac takes most other Windows Ctrl combinations as they are, such as Ctrl+D, Ctrl+1 and Ctrl+Shift+L.
- Galleries and colour swatches are left to the arrow keys, as on Windows.

## What it does not do

- It does not work in PowerPoint or Word. It is Excel only.
- It does not run Windows, Parallels, or any virtual machine. The letters are drawn over Excel for Mac.
- It does not install an update by itself. It reads the version number on this site and offers the download.
- The Draw and Automate tabs are listed and have not been tested yet.

## Example sequences

- Option H 1: Bold
- Option H B A: All borders
- Option H O I: Auto-fit column width
- Option E S: Paste Special
- Option A T: Filter
- Option W F F: Freeze panes
- Option H L H G: Conditional Formatting, Highlight Cells Rules, Greater Than

## Price

- Free for 7 days, with no account and no card. After the trial the letters are switched off until a licence is bought.
- Monthly: €3.99 a month, until cancelled.
- Lifetime: €39.99 once.
- Both prices include VAT.
- Bought from inside the app, under Settings… in its menu-bar menu, on the Licence tab. Payment is on a checkout page in the browser, hosted by RevenueCat and completed in Stripe Checkout, sold through Link. Stripe processes the payment and issues the invoice. A business can enter its VAT number at checkout and receive an invoice.
- A subscription sold through Link is cancelled in Link, from the link in the e-mails about the purchase. Manage Subscription… on the Licence tab opens the management page stored for that purchase, including one from the previous checkout. A licence covers one Mac. It can be moved to a new Mac from the Licence tab, with Restore Purchase… and the licence code.

## Requirements and limits

- macOS 13 or later, on Apple silicon or Intel.
- Excel for Mac.
- The Accessibility permission of macOS, which RibbonKeys needs to notice the tap on Option, to read where the ribbon's buttons are and to press them.
- A direct download from ribbonkeys.com; it is not in the Mac App Store.
- Excel for Mac has KeyTips of its own since 2024, switched off by default (Excel's settings, under Accessibility). RibbonKeys differs from them in using the Windows letters throughout, putting letters on the items of dropdowns and submenus, stepping back one level with Esc, and accepting the Excel 2003 menu keys.

## Privacy

RibbonKeys does not read the cells of a workbook and sends nothing about workbooks or key presses anywhere. About once an hour it checks its licence with RevenueCat and fetches the newest version number from ribbonkeys.com. No accounts, no analytics, no tracking.

## Support

Write to support@ribbonkeys.com.

## Pages

- [RibbonKeys](https://ribbonkeys.com/): the product page, with how it works, example sequences, price, questions and answers, privacy and support. Its title is the page for excel mac windows shortcuts.
- [Windows Excel shortcuts on a Mac](https://ribbonkeys.com/excel-mac-windows-shortcuts): Windows shortcuts in Excel on a Mac, with Option in place of Alt
- [Comparison](https://ribbonkeys.com/compare): RibbonKeys next to Accelerator Keys, MacCove, LightningXL, Excel's own shortcuts and KeyTips, and Windows Excel in Parallels
- [Excel Alt shortcuts on Mac: the full list](https://ribbonkeys.com/shortcuts): every letter, generated from the app's tables
- [One-page sheet](https://ribbonkeys.com/excel-alt-shortcuts-mac): the sequences people type, with the command beside each. The same sheet as a PDF: https://ribbonkeys.com/excel-alt-shortcuts-mac.pdf
- [The Alt key in Excel for Mac](https://ribbonkeys.com/alt-key-on-mac-for-excel)
- [Alt+H+O+I on a Mac: auto-fit column width](https://ribbonkeys.com/alt-h-o-i-on-mac)
- [Paste values in Excel for Mac](https://ribbonkeys.com/paste-values-on-mac-excel)
- [Paste special in Excel for Mac](https://ribbonkeys.com/paste-special-on-mac-excel)
- [Freeze panes shortcut in Excel for Mac](https://ribbonkeys.com/freeze-panes-shortcut-excel-mac)
- [Excel KeyTips on Mac, and where they differ from Windows](https://ribbonkeys.com/excel-keytips-on-mac)
- [Windows Excel shortcuts on a Mac without Parallels](https://ribbonkeys.com/windows-excel-shortcuts-on-mac-without-parallels)
- [An alternative to Accelerator Keys](https://ribbonkeys.com/accelerator-keys-alternative)
- [An alternative to MacCove](https://ribbonkeys.com/maccove-alternative)
- [Terms of sale](https://ribbonkeys.com/terms): the licences, payment, cancelling and the right of withdrawal
- [Privacy](https://ribbonkeys.com/#privacy): what the app reads and what it sends
- [Support](https://ribbonkeys.com/#support): support@ribbonkeys.com

RibbonKeys is an independent product. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Microsoft.