Computer and Web Articles

Keyboard shortcuts allow you to do your computer work quickly and more efficiently.

Think about all the poor people who don’t realize they can copy text with Ctrl + C and paste that text with Ctrl + V. Every time they want to copy and paste they select text with their cursor, move their cursors up to the Edit menu option at the top of their screen, click on that Edit menu option, move their cursors down, and select Copy. They then repeat an almost identical process to paste their text. Slow, inefficient, and tedious work.

But of course you already know about Copy and Paste, yes? Let’s look at some other useful keyboard shortcuts you can put to work for you.

• Ctrl + A: Selects everything! In Word this will select every single letter, word, image, etc. that’s sitting in your document. If you’re in a Windows folder, this will select every single file within the folder.
• Ctrl + B: This will bold text in many programs (Word, Excel, etc.).
• Ctrl + D: This allows you to quickly mark a web page as a Favorite when you’re using Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer.
• Ctrl + I: This will italicize text in many programs (Word, Excel, etc.).
• Ctrl + Q: This quits most programs. All done with your Excel spreadsheet? Finished up your Photoshop comp? This will close the program down for you, pronto. (If you’ve not saved your work yet, you’ll be prompted to do so before the program closes–don’t worry.)
• Ctrl + U: This will underline text in many programs (Word, Excel, etc.).
• Ctrl + Z: Undo!! Undo!! Make an error? Typo? Enter the wrong information? This will save you. I use it many, many times a day. (Sadly though, it can’t help you take back emails you shouldn’t have sent.)
• Ctrl + Esc: In PCs, this will pop open your Start menu (no need to click the Start button at the bottom left-hand corner of your screen).