Keyboard Shortcuts

The world is full of shortcuts.  Some good – some bad.  But in the computer world, shortcuts are a lifesaver.  Here are the 14 Must Know shortcuts for using a Windows-based PC.

Windows Operating System Shortcuts

Alt+Tab           To flip through open windows, press Alt+Tab. While holding down the Alt key, hit the Tab key again to go through the icons. When you let go of both keys, Windows takes you to that application.

Alt+F4             This keyboard shortcut closes the active window (i.e. the one where the Title bar is highlighted). If you hate pop up windows on the Internet, press Alt+F4 to get rid of them. If your keyboard has a Windows key (the one with a Windows logo on it) you can press Windows+D to minimize all your windows and show your desktop. This command is great if you have a habit of littering your screen with a lot of windows.

F1 (Function)   In virtually any application, pressing the F1 function key accesses the help file for that program.

The big three clipboard shortcuts

Ctrl+X              Cut

Ctrl+C              Copy

Ctrl+V              Paste

They work in virtually every program. You should never need to mouse to the Edit menu ever again.

Shortcuts for all programs

Ctrl+Z              The Undo key. If you goof up, press Ctrl+Z to undo your last action.

Ctrl+A              Highlights all the text or elements in a document or drawing

Ctrl+S              Saves the file

Ctrl+P              Prints a file

Word processing shortcuts

Ctrl+B adds bold

Ctrl+U adds underline

Ctrl+I  adds italic to whatever text you have selected.

And there you have it, 14 of the most useful and most used keyboard shortcuts. Most people hate to memorize stuff and I'm no exception. Sure there are millions more shortcuts, but if you can memorize just these 14 shortcuts, you're guaranteed to save a lot of time.