Tech Geek

Recently I was helping my Office Manager with a project that she was working on. We needed to move some information around between different windows and she was using the mouse and menu items at every step. As a keyboard user, this was about driving me nuts! So I thought maybe reviewing a few common keyboard shortcuts that I take for granted might save some of you a few moments in your day.

The most common keyboard shortcut that I use repeatedly throughout the day is [ALT-TAB]. To get this shortcut, press and hold the ALT key and then tap on the TAB key. On a Mac, this is achieved by pressing [COMMAND-TAB] in the same way. This will cycle through the open program windows that you have on your system. Depending on the specific version of Windows that you have it will show a small icon or live mini-screen indicating what programs you have open. This is much faster than reaching over for the mouse and clicking the program in the task-bar at the bottom of the screen.

Related to the above command is [CTRL-TAB] on PC or [COMMAND-~] (~ is the tilde, at the top left of your keyboard) on a Mac which will cycle through multiple windows in the same application. For example, I use it to go between tabs in Firefox, my Internet browser. Some applications open multiple instances, so you need to use [ALT-TAB] to cycle between windows.

The next set of keys that I use on a very regular basis are the ones for cutting, copying, and pasting text or other items. I'm going to talk about text, but you can use these same keys to operate on files, pictures, or other objects. First, you have to highlight the text or item, often by using the mouse. You can also highlight text by pressing SHIFT and either one of the arrow keys or the HOME or END keys to go to the beginning or end of a line.

Once you've gotten the text highlighted, you can use [CTRL-X] or [COMMAND-X] to cut the text. Cutting removes it from its current place and places it on the clipboard. Pressing [CTRL-C] or [COMMAND-C] places a copy of the highlighted text on the clipboard and also leaves it in its original location. Then you move the cursor to the new location by using the arrow keys or mouse and press [CTRL-V] or [COMMAND-V] to paste the text there. You can also copy text in one window or application, use [ALT-TAB] or [COMMAND-TAB] to get to another application, and then paste the text there. Sometimes the formatting gets all funky, so I'll open up Notepad and paste the text into Notepad to remove the formatting.

Sometimes you're working on a document and you paste something into it in the wrong location. Or you just type the wrong thing. This is where my favorite keyboard shortcut comes in, [CTRL-Z] or [COMMAND-Z], the undo key. It would really be nice to have an undo key in other parts of life sometimes! This will undo the last action that you did. Some programs even support multiple undos, up to ten or even more of the last actions you performed can be undone.

Then, if you undo something that you find you really liked after all, you can redo it by pressing [CTRL-Y] or [SHIFT-COMMAND-Z] and it will be back where it was before you undid it!

When you're done working and want to close windows and applications there are some keyboard shortcuts for that as well. To close the current window that you're working in, press [CTRL-W] or [COMMAND-W] and it will be gone. It may pop up a window asking if you want to save your work. If you've closed all the windows and the application is still running, press [ALT-F4] or [COMMAND-Q] to shut down the application.

The one Windows only shortcut that I find myself using often is [WINDOWSKEY-E] which pops up a new Windows Explorer window so I can find a file.

What are your favorite keyboard shortcuts that you couldn't imagine living without? Leave a note in the comments below!