In Excel
When you want to edit the highlighted cell, and you don't want to move back to the previous cell when pressing the <- key, you press F2.
Pressing F2 ensures that when you're editing the cell, the cursor will move back to the previous character and not the previous cell.
In Google Spreadsheets?
In Google Spreadsheets, the only way to achieve similar functionality to F2 in Excel is by double-clicking the cell with the mouse.
Pressing enter on the selected cell in Google Spreadsheets re-instantiates the behavior where pressing the <- key moves you to the previous cell.
Question
Is there a keyboard shortcut in Google Spreadsheets that creates the same behavior
as the Excel F2 key?
Best Answer
Per the official list of keyboard shortcuts, F2 is the only key responsible for editing a cell. I've just tried it in 3 browsers (Chrome 16, Firefox 9, and IE 9) and it doesn't function the same way as it does in Excel.
Your solutions are 1) pressing F2 before entering any data, 2) pressing Backspace to remove the characters you've typed after the error, or 3) using the mouse to navigate.