I’m frequently asked about all sorts of IT related issues throughout my consulting projects. This week I’ll be offering IT tips in my blog posts. In the mornings I’ll be posting simple day-to-day tips for basic computer competence, and in the afternoons, high-level issues impacting the entire corporate landscape.
The computer mouse marked a major milestone in computer development. Allowing users to move their bodies and see feedback on the screen made computer software more accessible to those without extensive programming experience. We still use mice today, but many use it a bit too much…
Whether searching on the internet, crunching data in spreadsheets, or writing documents in a word-processor, chances are your hands are on the keyboard. Every time you move your hand off the keyboard to grab the mouse, you’re taking time away from your primary task. Chances are the software you’re using has set up hotkeys, allowing you to use the keyboard to perform the task. For example: to save, you can almost always press Ctrl+S instead of clicking File, then moving down and pressing Save.
Learning the hotkeys for your most used commands will not only save you time, but allow you to discover new functionality that you weren’t using. A recent study by Google shows that over 75% of users don’t know that pressing Ctrl+F in a web browser will allow them to search for text on the webpage. Imagine how much time you could save by having the computer find your keywords rather than scanning with your eyes.
Here is a list of common hotkeys that you can start using immediately.
- Alt+Tab – Change which program you’re working in without clicking the window in the task bar
- Ctrl+N – Create a new document. Should work in Office software and web browsers
- Ctrl+O – Open a document or file
- Ctrl+S – Save a doucment. Should work in most software where you save your work
- Ctrl+L – Select the address in a web browser, allowing you to enter a new address.
- Ctrl+T – Open a new tab in a web browser. I’ll touch on tabbed browsing in a later post.
- Ctrl+F – Find text on a web page or in a document.
Some hotkeys that I find invaluable when working for my clients–which often requires me to have multiple tabs open in a web browser at any given time–are Ctrl+1, Ctrl+9, Ctrl+PageUp, and Ctrl+PageDown. Ctrl+1 automatically jumps you to the first open tab, Ctrl+9 jumps you to the last, Ctrl+PageUp moves you one tab backward, and Ctrl+PageDown moves you one tab forward. If you’re the kind of person who does lots of tabbed browsing, these shortcuts will save you a ton of time!