Mac Forum / Applications / Excel / July 2007

On 7/25/07 12:14 PM, in article
1185380059.605691.63050@d30g2000prg.googlegroups.com, "pracz@cox.net"

I don't know what you mean by "work properly."  Don't forget that on the
Mac, enter is different from Return. The Mac already has the behavior you
wish with the Enter key (the one on the numeric keypad.)

Well, I'm going to take a bit of an issue with "properly", since MS
initially screwed up all the keyboard mapping when they first ported XL
from Mac to Windows, but bear with me...

First, nearly all Mac applications use F4 to paste whatever is on the
clipboard, including out-of-the-box MacXL. With MacXL, of course, you
can customize nearly every command's keyboard shortcut using
Tools/Customize/Customize Keyboard...

WinXL's Enter key acts to paste data only if the WinOffice clipboard
contains data copied or cut from XL. Otherwise it acts as an Enter key.

MacXL uses the Mac system clipboard to copy and paste. That clipboard is
persistent, compared to the WinOffice clipboard, and (AFAIK) doesn't
indicate the source application, so using exactly the same mapping would
cause the Enter key to paste data from ANY application, which is very
likely NOT what you want.

However, you can approximate the WinXL behavior if you wish:

In your Personal Macro Workbook (or, my preference, in an add-in), enter
this into the ThisWorkbook code module (CTRL-click the workbook title
bar and choose View Code):

   Private Sub Workbook_Open()
       Application.OnKey "{Enter}", "EnterPaste"
   End Sub

Then create a new module in that workbook/add-in and paste

   Public Sub EnterPaste()
       If TypeOf Selection Is Range Then _
           If Application.CutCopyMode Then _
               Selection.Parent.Paste
   End Sub

Note that this will only affect the Enter key, not the Return key.