Make Keyboard Shortcuts Your Homey

For some strange reason, we’ve been raised all our lives to think that taking shortcuts in life is something to be frowned upon. But with the advancements in technology these days, it’s becoming evident that in no time, we’ll be turning that ugly frown upside-down.

Using shortcuts for our most basic set of tasks is becoming a part of everyday life. The remote control, the microwave oven, auto-deposit, quirky chat lingo (LOL!)… Need I go on? OK, I will… Keyboard Shortcuts.

“What the?” you ask?

Keyboard shortcuts for your computer are keystroke combinations that quickly perform a task usually accomplished through a mouse and a menu option (see this Wikipedia article for a more detailed definition). Depending on your level of computer expertise, you’re probably already using some of these shortcuts while reading this very article.

– Alt+Tab to switch from this article to the Wikipedia definition (or Ctrl+Tab if you’re using tabs).
– Ctrl+P to print this article for future reference
– Shift+L to laugh your pants off at this witty columnist

OK, that last one was not a real keyboard shortcut, but I think you get the point.

“So why do I need to use keyboard shortcuts oh wise one?” you ask?

I’ll answer that question by asking you another question (don’t you hate when people do that?).

Do you value your life?

Well if you do, then that is the answer to your question my young Jedi. “Use keyboard shortcuts, you must.”

Making use of KS (just used a shortcut for keyboard shortcuts, get it? *nudge*) will increase your computer productivity and dramatically save you time (possibly years off your life?) that you can reclaim to do whatever else it is you do. I won’t ask.

Not that I have anything against that sparkly mouse of yours. Most times, it’s just easier and quicker to perform functions using the keyboard instead of 1) reaching for the mouse, 2) looking all over the screen for the dang cursor, 3) aiming and clicking on a menu and 4) selecting an option. A simple, 1-2, KS combination would have done the same thing in less than half the time. Naww-mean?

Let’s start with the basics.

You see ‘dem buttons on the bottom left hand corner of your keyboard named “Shift”, “Ctrl”, “[Windows Logo]” and “Alt”? These are your trigger keys for keyboard shortcuts. When you combine one of these with another key/button/letter, magic happens.

Some of you probably already know the shortcuts for copy, paste and selecting text, but let’s just try a little experiment here to get things started shall we?

Open up Notepad and enter in the following phrase:

World Wide Ed, why are you such a helpful genius?

To open up Notepad, go to your Start button and under Programs–> Accessories, you will see Notepad. Alternatively, you can use a shortcut (weeeee) to Notepad by hitting Windows Key+R (to open up the Run dialog box) and typing in notepad.

Using your normal methods, let’s duplicate that awesome phrase above in Notepad 25 times. Ready, set, go!

OK, time’s up. How did y’all do? Let’s explore the various ways in which you may have accomplished this repetitive task.

• If you’re new to the KS game, you may have retyped that phrase 25 times manually. If you did, I cry with you in pain with every keystroke.
• Some of you may have thought you were smart alecs and used your mouse to highlight the phrase, and went to the Edit menu (or right-clicked) to manually copy and paste each line 25 times. Again, I shed tears for you.
• Even still, some of you may have known about the Ctrl+C (or Ctrl+Insert) and Shift+V (or Shift+Insert) keyboard shortcuts for Copy and Paste and repeated that 25 times. You’re getting warmer.

Let’s try a quick method that doesn’t even involve the mouse, which helps since we’re already using the keyboard to type that remarkably accurate statement:

1. Type the statement once and after you’re done, hold the Shift button and hit the Home button (don’t worry, this will all be second nature before long). This highlights everything from the point of where the cursor was (the end of the sentence where you stopped typing) to the beginning of the line.
2. From here use Ctrl+C (Ctrl button and the letter c button) to copy the highlighted phrase.
3. Hit the End button (places your cursor at the end of the line) and hit Enter (moves cursor position to the next line) and use Ctrl+V to paste the phrase below the original line.
4. Since the phrase is still stored in your “clipboard” (the place where copied data is stored), you’ll want to do this 23 more times to complete the tasked 25 instances.

Duplicating “World Wide Ed, why are you such a helpful genius?” 25 times

Of course the smartest way to go would have been to copy and paste that phrase 5 times, then, copy that group (paragraph) into the clipboard and paste that 5 more times to make the 25, but the advanced highlighting methods (Ctrl+Shift+Home FYI) are not yet in your arsenal (read the “select text by using the keyboard” section of this Office Online article for more information).

So what else can I do?

Well, almost everything you can do with your mouse and menus can be accomplished with keyboard shortcuts. Following is a list of my most favorite, frequently used KS in Windows and varying Windows-based applications. Play with them and let me know what you think in the comments below!

General Windows shortcuts:

Alt+Tab
Probably one of the most recognized shortcuts in Windows used to cycle between open programs/windows. It’s even a shortcut on Apple/MacOS platform now. While holding down the Alt key, continuously hit the Tab button until your desired program/window is highlighted. Release the Alt key to change to the selected program/window.

Windows Key+M (or Windows Key+D)
Oh, you’re gonna love this one. When you have a parade of windows open and you want to quickly minimize them all and show the Desktop, what do you do? Albeit slow, meticulously clicking the minimize button of each window one by one is one way. The other is to do the Windows Key+M (or Windows Key+D) combination. Beautiful ain’t it?

Windows Key+Shift+M
Now what happens when you want to get back to that window you were just at and reverse the minimize all action you just took? Easy, just hit Windows Key+Shift+M keystroke and whoomp there it is. Yes, it’s our first three key combination, but no worries, you’ll pick it up quick.

Windows Key+E
How often do you find yourself needing to look for a file on your computer? Going to the Desktop and double-clicking on My Computer is not always easy, especially with some Windows Operating Systems/settings hiding the My Computer icon from the desktop. You could go to Start–> Programs–> Accessories–> Windows Explorer, but how long does that take dammit? A simple Windows Key (the button with the Windows logo on it)+E is a quick way to fire up Windows Explorer without the headache. Use Windows Key+F if you want to search for a file.

Windows Key+L
This tricky little number is one more for when you’re at work or a public place. When you want to step away from your computer for a bit and want any prying eyes browsing around your files (or don’t trust your cubicle mates :P), hitting Windows Key+L will lock your keyboard (if your account has a password) and bring up the login screen. It sure beats “logging off” or waiting for the screen saver to auto-lock your computer don’t it?

Other helpful Windows shortcuts:

• Windows Key (or Ctrl+Esc): Opens Up Start Menu
• Windows+R: Displays Run dialog box.
• Windows Key+Break: System Properties Dialog Box
• Alt+F4: Closes current application (don’t do this one now though unless you want to lose this gem of an article! ;P )

General shortcuts within Windows and select programs (e.g. Microsoft Word):

Ctrl+S
Quickly saves the document that you’re currently working on (or opens up the save menu if it’s the first time). I highly recommend getting into the habit of saving your document often to save yourself the grief of losing precious data. Ctrl+S speeds up the process so it isn’t a pain to remember to save.

Ctrl+Z
How often do you do something and wish you hadn’t? The Ctrl+Z (undo) is your lifesaver. It literally undoes your last action to bring you back to the state you were in before screwing the pooch. Hit Ctrl+Z a few more times and walla!, it actually goes back multiple times before multiple blunders.

Shift+F7
Need to lookup a word quickly in a thesaurus? Highlight the word in question and hit Shift+F7 and you’ll be offered a bevy (or horde, crowd, throng, flock, multitude, pack, mass or mob) of choices. 🙂

Shift+F3
Want to quickly convert that CAPSLOCKED (or all small capped) paragraph to proper structure? Select the paragraph and hit Shift+F3 a few times until the desired result is shown.

Other helpful shortcuts within Windows and select programs:

• Ctrl+A: Select all
• Ctrl+C: Copy selected info
• Ctrl+V: Paste selected info
• Ctrl+N: Open new document
• Ctrl+O: Open existing document
• Ctrl+P: Print
• Ctrl+B: Bold selected text
• Ctrl+U: Underline selected text
• Ctrl+I: Italicize selected text
• Ctrl+F: Find dialog box
• Ctrl+H: Search and Replace dialog box
• F1: Program’s Help
• Alt+Underlined letter in menu items: opens corresponding menu item (e.g. Alt+F will open File menu).
• Shift+Home: Selects copy from cursor point to beginning of line.
• Shift+End: Selects copy from cursor point to end of line.
• Shift+Arrow Buttons: Selects copy from cursor point towards direction of arrow
• Ctrl+Shift+Arrow Buttons: Selects copy from cursor point towards direction of arrow by word, line, paragraph or document.

(Again, the advanced highlighting techniques can be read about at this Office Online article.)

General shortcuts within Windows Explorer (Windows Key+E):

F2
Selected item is ready to be renamed using this simple key command.

Alt+Enter
Quickly displays Properties window of selected item.

Shift+F10
Displays dialog box (same as if you were right-clicking with the mouse) of selected item.

Other helpful shortcuts within Windows Explorer:

• Shift+Delete: Permanently deletes file (skips recycle bin)
• Mouse+Shift: When moving a file with the mouse, hold down the Shift key to make a copy of that file (you’ll see a plus sign show up next to the file)
• Mouse+Shift+Ctrl: When moving a file with the mouse, hold down the Shift and Ctrl to make a shortcut of that file (you’ll see a shortcut arrow show up next to the file)
• Enter: Opens selected file/folder
• Alt+Right Arrow/Left Arrow: Navigates back or forward (also can be used in Internet Explorer).
• Backspace: Goes back up to parent folder
• ESC: Cancel/get out of dialog boxes.
• Tab or F6: Moves from one pane to the next

General Shortcuts within Internet Explorer:

Alt+D
Quickly highlights the Address bar so you can type the web site you want to go to quickly and easily.

Ctrl+Enter
One of my favorite shortcuts. This automagically adds the www. to the beginning and .com to the end of the domain you enter into the address bar (e.g. type aroundhawaii into the address bar and use Ctrl+Enter to add the www. and .com and go directly to the site). Cool huh?

Ctrl+N
Opens a new browser window so you can go to another web site while leaving the existing window open. Similarly, Ctrl+T opens a new tab in Firefox and IE7+.

Ctrl+W
Contrarily, the Ctrl+W will close the currently displayed window or tab.

Shift+Click or Ctrl+Click
This one is awesome when you are browsing a web site and want to click a link, but don’t want to lose the page you’re at. Holding down the Shift key and clicking on the link with your mouse will open that link in a new browser. Firefox and IE7+ users can opt to use Ctrl+Click, which opens the link in a new tab instead.

Alt+Home
When you’re tired of looking at all that junk on the Internet and want to quickly go back to your home page (which should be http://www.aroundhawaii.com btw *grin*), use Alt+Home to go to your browser’s set home page.

F5 or Ctrl+R
This will refresh the page that you are currently looking at. Ctrl+F5 will do a “hard” refresh (non-cached refresh) FYI.

Alt+Left Arrow/Right Arrow
When navigating with the mouse becomes a drag, use Alt+Left Arrow to navigate backwards and Alt+Right Arrow to navigate forward.

Other helpful shortcuts within Internet Explorer:

• F4: Displays typed address list
• Ctrl+H: Opens History list
• Ctrl+I: Opens Favorites list
• Ctrl+D: Adds current page to your favorites
• Ctrl+L or Ctrl+O: Opens new location dialog box
• Home: Jumps to beginning of page
• Page Down: Scrolls page down one screen at a time
• Page Up: Scrolls page down one screen at a time
• End: Jumps to end of page
• F11: Full screen mode

This is a just a small sample of shortcuts that I personally like to use. For a complete list of all shortcuts, check out the following links and it won’t be long until you’re partying like a rock star with shortcuts galore.

• Keyboard Shorcuts for Windows (from Microsoft Knowledge Base)
• List of the keyboard shortcuts that are available in Windows XP (from Microsoft Knowledge Base)
• Keyboard Assistance and Shortcuts (Program Specific shortcuts for Microsoft products)

And no, I didn’t forget about you Mac-ies either. Here are a couple good links for you guys:

• Mac OS 8.5, 8.6, 9.0 Keyboard Shortcuts
• Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts

Here’s a pretty cool comparison table – that compares like keyboard shortcuts for different Operating Systems – from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_keyboard_shortcuts.

And here’s another comparison table – that compares like keyboard shortcuts for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera – from the Mozilla web site: http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/keyboard.

Not to be outdone, Google somehow accomplishes keyboard shortcuts for their popular web-based email product called Gmail: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6594.

So you see, by incorporating at least some of the above shortcuts into your bag o’ tricks, you will save yourself from repetitive typing and mouse movements, be more productive, look cool, and most importantly, earn back valuable years to your life. 😉

KIT, and remember…

World Wide Ed is a helpful genius!
World Wide Ed is a helpful genius!
World Wide Ed is a helpful genius!
World Wide Ed is a helpful genius!
World Wide Ed is a helpful genius!…