IT Gang - A place for tips and tricks

Once upon a time, there was a nice little thing called "keyboard". Then they invented the mouse (especially the optical one, the scroll mouse was a pain in the...hand). Anyway, most people do not take advantage of all the keyboard shortcuts the newer Windows versions offer.

I remember the good old days when I had my first modem. It was an external one, that made that cute connecting noise whenever I was desperately trying to connect to my ISP. The only problem was that at that time I had a scroll mouse that needed the serial port of my computer to work, and that was exactly the port the external modem needed... So I had to choose whether I used the Internet or the mouse. So I had to learn many keyboard shortcuts to open a page, to change the focus on different links in order to navigate... Remember telnet? :) Even more frustrating was at the beginning when I did not remember some key combination to do something (like a save as). So I had to close the Internet connection, plug the mouse back, find the key combination (thanx for creating a HELP in IE) then plug the modem back and reconnect...

So we are more fortunate these days, when we have multiple USB ports, plug and play mouses and keyboards, on board LAN and no more needs for modems.

Still, some of the keyboard shortcuts below I use daily (like show Desktop - I kinda "hate" people that spend a couple of seconds to<<grab the mouse and search for that little icon in the quick launch bar ... wait, where is that? ... oh, here it is... >> instead of just pressing two buttons with the left hand - Win + D)

1. Ctrl+s - probably one of my most frequently used shortcuts, this saves your work in a program.

2. Ctrl+x - Cuts highlighted text to the clipboard to be pasted elsewhere.

3. Ctrl+v - Pastes text from the clipboard.

4. Ctrl+c - Copies text to the clipboard.

5. Win+e - Opens Windows Explorer.

6. Win+f - Opens the Find File box.

7. Win+pause - A little-known shortcut that opens the system properties window.

8. Win+m - Minimizes all your windows and shows the desktop.

9. Win+d - Same as minimize, but instead, if you press it again it pops back the windows as they were. You can call this the "BOSS" button.

10. Win+r - Opens the Run Program window.

11. Alt+F4 - Closes the program you're currently using.

12. Ctrl+F4 - Closes the current window, but not the entire program.

13. F1 - Probably the most famous shortcut, it's been around since the '80s, and it brings up Help.

14. Alt-Ctrl-Del or Ctrl-Alt-Del - Also a very famous shortcut. In DOS it reboots the computer, in Windows it brings up the Close Programs box, useful for closing hung programs. Press it again and the computer reboots.

15. Shift+del - This deletes a file permanently, bypassing the Recycle Bin. However there seems to be a little bug in Windows, and it doesn't always work first time. 80% of the time it does work however, so just keep trying it until it works.

16. Ctrl+i - Makes the text italics.

17. Ctrl+b - Makes the text bold.

18. Ctrl+u - Underlines the text.

19. Alt+double-click - Brings up the properties box of a file or folder.

20. Ctrl+z - Probably the most useful shortcut, this one undo's the last action you made. (not always available).

21. Ctrl+a - Highlights everything on a page

Internet Explorer Shortcuts

1. F5 - Refreshes the webpage.

2. Backspace - Goes back a page.

3. Alt+left arrow - Goes back a page.

4. Alt+right arrow - Goes forward a page.

5. Escape - Stops the website loading.

6. Home - Goes back to top of webpage.

7. End - Goes to end of webpage.

8. Ctrl+mousewheel-up - Decreases the size of the text in Internet Explorer.

9. Ctrl+mousewheel-down - Increases the size of text on the Internet Explorer.

10. Shift+click hyperlink - This opens the link in a new window.

11. Alt+d - Jumps to the address bar so that you can type a new address.

12. Shift+mousewheel-up - Forward a page (if over a link, it takes you to that page)

13. Shift+mousewheel-down - Back a page.

14. Ctrl+h - Brings up the history list of visited websites.

15. Ctrl+f - Find a word or phrase in the website.

16. F2 - Used when icon/folder/file is selected (highlighted). It lets you rename the icon/folder/file.

17. Ctrl+Enter - This is a great timesaver! Type google in the address bar and press ctrl-enter. You'll notice it automatically adds http://www. and the .COM. This works for any address!

18. Mousewheel click - If over a link, opens that page in a new TAB (IE 7). If over a tab, closes that tab.

19. Ctrl+t - Opens new tab.

20. Ctrl+TAB - Cycles to next opened tab.

21. Ctrl+Shift+TAB - Cycles to previous opened tab.


Firefox Shortcuts

Most of the above (IE) shortcuts work on Firefox as well. In addition:

22. Ctrl+w - closes the current tab

While in the address bar, pressing:

23. Ctrl+Shift+Enter - Type google in the address bar and press ctrl-shift-enter. You'll notice it automatically adds http://www. and the .ORG. This works for any address!

24. Alt+Shift+Enter - Type google in the address bar and press ctrl-shift-enter. You'll notice it automatically adds http://www. and the .NET. This works for any address!

There are other combinations but this list is enough to get you started. Remember that you should always try to find easier ways to access or do something because, after all, "Time is money"!

Happy keyboarding!