Excel boasts over 500 shortcuts (source: the developers), with some featuring secret behaviors, such as Ctrl + D 😎

Standard use of Ctrl + D shortcut in Excel

In its typical application, the shortcut Ctrl + D duplicates the contents of your active cell downward, encompassing both values and formulas.

However, in this scenario, the most straightforward approach is to utilize the fill handle. Therefore, in such cases, Ctrl + D may not be particularly advantageous. 😕

Use Ctrl + D with graphic objects

But, if you work with graphic objects like charts, shapes or icons, this shortcut is really great 😍

Import an icon

For exemple, let's import the symbol man from the menu Insert > Icon

Then, in the next dialog box, you search for "man" and you select the following icon

Crop the icon

Once the icon has been added to your worksheet, you can see that there is extra blank to remove around the icon.

To do that, we must cropped the icon with the option Graphics Format > Crop

Now here is the steps to remove the blank part around the picture

1. Click on the Crop icon
2. Remove the blank part
3. Click again on the Crop icon to keep your changes

Duplicate the icon

Now, let's see how to duplicate this icon to create a series of icons like we did for our custom people charts.

This is where the shortcut Ctrl + D will be very useful

1. Select your picture
2. Press Ctrl + D

This action will duplicate your pictures, icon, chart. But the result isn't acceptable 😵🥴

Adjust the position of your icon

Of course, the position proposed by the duplicate action isn't the one we want. So, let's move the picture to the correct location.

NOW, here is the secret of the shortcuts Ctrl + D in Excel

1. We have used Ctrl + D to duplicate the picture.
2. Then we have moved the duplicate icon to the position we want.
3. AND NOW, the next Ctrl + D ...... will duplicate the icon AND KEEP the previous move 😮👍

With this shortcut, you save a lot of time with the position of your graphic object 👍😍