The Chromebook itself

To get started, sign-in to your Chromebook using your FCS email address and password. Apps will be pre-installed, and are easily accessible at the bottom task bar of the device, or through hitting the search key (magnifying glass) on your keyboard.

To use the chromebook as a tablet, flip the screen to enter tablet mode. User the built-in stylus (tucked away on the bottom right of the device)

Battery Life

A new Chromebook can last 8-10 hours on a full charge. To help prolong the useful life of its battery, avoid fully draining the battery and leaving it plugged in for extended periods. We recommend that you fully charge your Chromebook at home and leave power cord at home.

Booting and rebooting tips

Closing your Chromebook will put it into sleep mode, so that it will power back on when you open it. You can instead press and hold the power switch to completely shut it off if you won’t be using it for an extended period, and you’ll then need to tap the power switch and wait a few seconds for it to boot up.

• If your Chromebook won’t start
  • Maybe the battery is drained; try plugging in the charger, waiting a bit, and rebooting. You can also try leaving it plugged in for a few minutes and then rebooting, or even plugging it in for a bit, unplugging it for a bit, and then plugging back in to try and get the battery to charge.
  • Try soft rebooting your Chromebook by holding down the refresh key while you press the power button.+
  • Try hard rebooting your Chromebook by pressing and holding the power button until it shuts down. Wait a bit and boot it up fresh.
  • If the screen lights up, but it won’t connect to WiFi and just asks you to “Please wait”, see the box at right for a fix.

Keyboard, touchpad, and stylus

The most important keyboard shortcut is CTRL+ALT+? because that will display on the Chromebook screen various shortcuts.

Press the CTRL, ALT, SHIFT, and SEARCH keys to see the shortcuts associated with each combination. Most, but not all, of the illustrated shortcuts will work on your Chromebook.

Pressing CTRL+ALT+? will display the keyboard shortcuts available. Press the CTRL, ALT, SHIFT, and SEARCH keys and the on-screen keyboard will show you more shortcuts for different combinations

Chromebook tips

• When things go haywire, hit REFRESH + POWER to quickly reboot
• To make things BIGGER and use more room on your screen:
  • CTRL + (plus key) = Zoom in
    • CTRL - (minus key) = Zoom out
    • CTRL 0 (zero key) = Reset zoom
  • On the touchscreen, you can pinch and zoom with TWO fingers
• To quickly split the screen, click ALT+[ to dock the current window to the left side, and then open a new app or use CTRL+N for a new window; use ALT+] to dock to the right side
  • Or drag the current window’s title bar to the left or right screen edge to dock it
• To quickly search, calculate, or convert, click SEARCH button or click the Omnibox and start typing
  • You can type calculations, such as 15/8 or 12+354-43, etc.
  • You can type conversions, such as 16 inches to cm or 55 mi/h to km/h, etc.
• To scroll, slide TWO fingers up and down the touchpad (or two fingers on the touchscreen)
• To RIGHT-click, tap TWO fingers on the touchpad (or hold down ALT while you tap with one, or on a touchscreen tap with TWO fingers or tap and hold with one finger)
• Capturing and editing images:
  • RIGHT-click (see above) an image in the browser and select Copy image or Save image as...
  • CTRL + TAB OVERVIEW= Copy screen to clipboard
  • CTRL + SHIFT + TAB OVERVIEW = Click/drag for partial screenshot

You can edit an image by opening it in the Files app and then clicking the pencil icon