keyboard shortcuts

Why you should use keyboard shortcuts, plus my favourites!

Have you ever heard of using keyboard shortcuts? These are a sequence of keys you press on your keyboard in order to give your computer some sort of a command. You need to hold each one down until you tap the last key in the sequence (for example, the shortcut to print is Ctrl+P - this means you have to press and hold the Ctrl key and then the P key once). You do NOT press the plus sign on your keyboard.

There are TONS of keyboard shortcuts out there and you can even customize your own in some programs! For context, I am a Google Chrome user and a Windows 10 user, Macbooks will have slightly different shortcuts, and most start with the “command” key (cmd) instead of a “control” key (Ctrl). You’re going to learn WHY and HOW you should use keyboard shortcuts. I will be sharing some classics as well as lesser-known shortcuts that I find incredibly helpful.

Keyboard shortcuts save your precious time

Learning keyboard shortcuts can take a little time as it can be difficult to remember the exact shortcuts at first. However, the more you use them, the easier it becomes! Every time I learn a new shortcut, I try to practice using it until it has become second nature to me. All these shortcuts add up and end up saving me lots of time every single day. When I make a mistake, instead of looking for the tiny undo button on the screen, moving my hand away from the keyboard to my mouse, and moving the mouse to click the tiny button, I can hold the Ctrl key down and tap the letter z, and keep going much faster! Sometimes I just don’t want to move my hands off the keyboard because I am on a roll with my writing, and other times, I just physically can’t, like when my sweet dog cuddles up and plops down on my mouse to ‘help me work’.

Learn a different way

It’s always helpful to know how to do things on a computer in multiple ways. There have been so many times where I have been on a website and needed to do something and have been unable to do so in my usual way, but worked around the issue using various keyboard shortcuts. I’ve accessed websites where I needed to copy and paste some information, but couldn’t even right-click on their site and had no idea WHY. Of course, I simply pressed Ctrl+C and easily copied what I needed. It was definitely helpful to have an alternative method that worked!

Make your computer more accessible

At times it can be quite difficult for me to do things on a computer depending on the device I have available. For example, I used to use a Microsoft Surface Pro with a detachable keyboard. I found it IMPOSSIBLE to accurately select or move any text using that trackpad. It was so incredibly frustrating! Before I purchased a wireless mouse, keyboard shortcuts were an absolute necessity!

If I didn’t know these tricks, I wouldn’t have been able to use my device and get any work done and miiiiiiiight have ended up throwing that computer at a wall. I did end up smashing that computer on the floor many months later, but that was a total accident! Sometimes it’s quite difficult for people to complete some actions even using a mouse. Clicking and dragging can be hard to do! Keyboard shortcuts level the playing field and make all actions accessible.

Some oldies but goodies…

Selecting text can be annoying sometimes, but using the shortcut for Select All (Ctrl+A) is a huge time saver. More on advanced text selection below! Copying your text with Ctrl+C and Pasting with Ctrl+V (NOT Ctrl+P, remember, that’s Print) is a huge time saver but it can be hard to remember the difference between copying and cutting. Copying makes a copy of your text, but leaves it in place. Cutting removes the text, so that it can be placed (Pasted) somewhere else The shortcut for cutting is Ctrl+X. I give my students the hint that the X looks like scissors, which obviously cut. A lesser-known trick is pasting without formatting (Ctrl+Shift+V) which takes away the formatting of whatever you copied so your text matches the formatting of wherever you are pasting, saving you time from reformatting later.

Undoing and Redoing your actions with the shortcuts Ctrl+Z (Undo) and Ctrl+Y (Redo) work almost anywhere online, they are pretty universal shortcuts. The same goes for opening a new tab in your browser (Ctrl+T), closing a tab in your browser (Ctrl+W), and opening a brand new window (Ctrl+N). Check out my YouTube video to learn more information about understanding windows and tabs. You can easily and quickly switch between your open tabs using the shortcut of Ctrl+Tab. You hold down the Ctrl key and every time you press the tab key, it flips to another tab you have open. Very similarly, the shortcut Alt+Tab is an awesome way to manage all the windows you have open. To quickly close your whole window - remember that includes ALL your tabs in that window - just press Alt+F4.

My Favourites!

I’ve actually learned some of my favourite shortcuts from awesome kids over the years! I remember a student doing these shortcuts and they almost blew my mind, I can’t believe I had been missing out on these esoteric shortcuts all these years. These are all super easy, just not well known. Watch my video below if you need extra support!

Going back to managing tabs in a web browser, using the Ctrl key and any of the number keys (1-8) will allow you to choose the exact tab you want to switch to. For example, Ctrl+3 would go to the third tab you have open, but if you only have two tabs open, it would do nothing. Ctrl+9 will take you to the very last tab you have open, even if it’s less than 9.

These are my biggest time savers and my most treasured shortcuts! Using Shift + left/right arrow keys will allow you to select single letters at a time. Instead of Shift, using Ctrl and then the left/right arrow keys will allow your cursor to flip between the whole words instead of just one space. Ctrl and then the up or down arrow will take your cursor to the top or the bottom of the paragraph.

Now we’re going to take all these same actions and add the Shift key in the middle. Ctrl+Shift+arrows left or right will select your text one word at a time! Ctrl+Shift+arrows up or down will select your text to the top or bottom of the paragraph from where your cursor is at that moment.

Sometimes we need to get rid of text, but it’s not always as easy as Selecting All (Ctrl+A) and deleting everything all at once. Using one of the above tricks to select your text and then pressing Backspace or Delete would work, but sometimes you only need to erase some of the text around your cursor. This shortcut has been a HUGE time saver for over the years. You can use Ctrl+Backspace to erase one word at a time to the left of your cursor and Ctrl+Delete to erase one word at a time to the right.

Pick and choose the shortcuts that work best for you and whatever you’re working on. The more you use them, the easier they become. Eventually, they start feeling like second nature to you.

Need help? Not sure which shortcuts would benefit your needs? Reach out today! techtutoringwithlisa@gmail.com

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Lisa Charow-Jay

August 8th, 2020

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