Over the weekend, even though at home my wife was hooked to her laptop for putting together a write-up that she and her friend had thought of for a good cause. After a while with a frustrated look on her face, my wife handed over her laptop to me and asked me to format a word document. It had ran into 40-odd pages. She was at it formatting right since lunch time till my afternoon tea and had finally given up. It was Sunday and I couldn’t say “no”, sighting some work! Well, I got on with it and to her amazement I did it in about 45 minutes or so. Well though there is nothing much to boast about it or feel proud of, it had enough spice in it for my wife and her friends to munch for the coming week! But one point that I made there was that with some computer typing skills and smartness one can save on time and frustration. And who knows, probably be a “star” for a while with your spouse’s friends !
So how did I manage to do that? Simple. Used Keyboard short-cuts! Yes there are so many keyboard shortcuts that you can virtually do away with a mouse. Though each shortcut performs different operations on different application, they do exists. And it really helps if you know few as it certainly saves you on typing effort and saves time. And if you think time is indeed money, then I can very well say that you eventually save on time, won't you! Keeping that in mind I thought of sharing with you few of the commonly used and not-so commonly used computer keyboard shortcuts. Let’s start with “Not-So” commonly used followed by few commonly used ones.
Not-So Commonly Used Computer Keyboard Shortcuts
Windows key + Pressing Pause
System Properties
Window + 1, Window + 2......Window + Any number key
Quick Launch icons - Number 1 launches the first icon, Win+2 launches the second, all the way to Win+0, which launches the 10th
Win key->tap the right-arrow key three times-> Press R.
To restart Vista without a mouse
Win+Alt+Enter
To launch Media Center
Win + Spacebar
Vista Sidebar
F6
Brings the cursor in the address line and highlights all text (web browser).
Ctrl + Enter in the address bar
Prefix the word in the address bar with “http://www.” ....and... postfix it with “.com” (web browser).
Win + R
Run Command
Ctrl + N
Opens a new instance of the current window. If its browser, then opens a new browser, if it's a Word doc, opens a new word doc
Ctrl + D
The Internet Explorer, prompts you to add the current page to favourites.
Ctrl + Q
Displays all the tabs in the current Internet Explorer browser as large icons on your screen, clicking one one takes you to that tab.
Ctrl + T
Opens a new Tab, in the current Internet explorer
Ctrl + I
Launches the Favorites from the left hand side of the screen of IE.
Ctrl + T
Indents a the select lines in Ms Word
Select file/folder then press either Left Click or F2
Renaming a file/folder in the windows explorer
Now some Commonly used computer keyboard shortcuts
Windows + E
Opens Windows Explorer.
Windows + F
Search for windows files and folders.
Windows + L
Locks computer
Win + D
Minimizes all windows. Pushing Windows + D again restores all windows which were open.
Win + R
Opens Run dialog box.
Alt + Tab
Switch between open programs.
Shift + Delete
Delete files permanently, so that you don’t have to clean up your recycle bin, every now and then.
Alt + F4
Closes opened application.
PrtScrn
Takes a screenshot.
Alt + PrtScrn
Takes a screen shot of the active window.
Ctrl + Alt + Del
Opens Windows task manager.
Ctrl + C
Copy.
Ctrl + V
Paste.
Ctrl + X
Cut.
Ctrl + F
Find (for most applications).
Ctrl + A
Highlights all text/ selects all items (files/folders/etc).
Ctrl + Tab
Switch tabs (web browser).
F11
Removes all toolbars (web browser).
Try it out. For mouse-savvy computer operators, it will take some time for you to get used to the keyboard way, but once you get it, I am sure you will appreciate the fact that time is indeed money!
Happy typing!
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