Shortcuts to heaven

Posted by: Dan Prior | 03 May 2007

Have you ever been working on something with a colleague and noticed them hitting a key which does something immediately that would take you five mouse clicks and trawling through a number of menus?  My usual response to this is "Wow - show me what you just pressed!", and once I am enlightened I have a secret mission to spread the word about this new short cut which will cut down on the dreaded mouse clicks and menu trawling that absorbs our working life.  So here are some of my favourite short cuts.
 
- Windows M - hit the windows key and the 'M' key at the same time and all your windows that are open will be minimised leaving your desktop clear.  This one also has the benefit of giving you the same feeling that you get when you've tidied your desk - but much quicker.  If you want to undo the minimise just go for shift, windows, and M, all at the same time.  This is very similar to Windows D - for more information on the difference see here.

- Windows L - hit the windows key and the 'L' key at the same time and your computer will be locked automatically until you enter your password to unlock it.  Great to use when heading out to lunch.

- Windows E - hit the windows key and the 'E' key and Windows Explorer (to manage your folders and files) opens up.

- Windows F - to find files and folders.

- Word: Alt Shift U - do you use automatic table of contents in MS-Word?  I do, and for large documents they are a life-saver automatically updating your table of contents without you having to work out page numbers etc... Anyway updating the table of contents normally takes 5 clicks, but once you've highlighted the table of contents a simple 'alt shift U' causes an update of the table of contents.

- Alt T S - whether you are in Word, Powerpoint, Outlook, or another Microsoft product spell checking is as easy as Alt T S.

- Control X and Control V - cut and paste.  Very useful for moving text around documents.

- Control Z - undo - pure and simple.  Wouldn't it be good if we could use this for things we've said.

- Powerpoint: B - you're running a presentation in an important meeting and your audience keep staring at your complex PowerPoint slides when you want to grab their attention.  Simply hit the 'B' key and the screen is blanked, and they automatically (and almost subconsciously) adjust their focus on to you.  At this point make sure you say an important line, and say it slowly with a good pause afterwards so that they don't miss! 

- F2 - when in Windows Explorer and you want to rename a file or folder just highlight the file or folder name and hit F2.

- Windows R - finally for the aspiring-techies out there; get using Windows R to bring up the 'run' command.

Posted in: Technology Social