Keyboard Shortcuts

Why mess around with your mouse? Here's some cool KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS for XP, Vista and Windows 7

I don't know about you but when I sit on the other side of the desk of a banker, doctor, insurance salesman, etc. and I watch them fiddling around with a mouse on their computer, I get a little nervous. I don't want to risk my money, my health or my insurance needs with someone who doesn't know how to operate a computer using keyboard shortcuts. I'd much rather do business with a geek and geeks know Keyboard shortcuts.

Cool Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are cool. Here's a quick keyboard shortcut tip that you can try right now. No matter what browser you're reading this in (except Google Chrome) there will be a menu bar at the top of the page that reads: File Edit View etc. There may be a black line under f in the word File and a another one under the e in Edit and so on. If there isn't a line under a letter in all of the words in this menu bar, just press your Alt key they will appear. Then you can press Alt and any letter that is underlined to access that menu. When the menu opens just press the key corresponding to the letter that is underlined on the menu choice you want to access. Why not try it right now? If you're reading this in Internet Explorer you will see File, Edit, View, Favorites, Tools and Help on your menu bar. If one letter isn't underlined in each of these words, press the Alt key and you'll see the underlined letters. Now hold down the Alt key and type the letter a and your Favorites will open. Now use your down arrow key (you have four arrow keys on the right side of your keyboard) to highlight choices down the list. You can use your arrow keys to go up, down and to the right or left in your Favorites menu and when you land on a site you want to visit press your Enter key. If you leave this page for a moment, you don't need to mouse up to your Back Button to get back here to finish reading this. All you have to do to get back here is hold down the Alt key and type your left Arrow key. If you're done looking at your Favorites menu, you know that you can mouse-click anywhere outside it to close it. To close it with the keyboard, press the Esc key.

Using this shortcut method of accessing the Menu Bar will work in any Windows program. It works in Word, Excel and even little programs like Wordpad and Notepad.

Oh, and should you want to add this page to your Favorites for future reference the keyboard shortcut way to do that is Ctrl plus d and when the Add a Favorite box appears you'll notice that the letter a in the word Add is underlined. Just hold down the Alt key and type a and this page will be added to your favorites.

Opening a Program with the Keyboard

Cool Keyboard Shortcuts

I use the tiny little calculator in Windows XP and Vista all the time. I don't click the Start button and search for the calculator there. And I don't use the keyboard shortcut to open the Start menu which is Ctrl Esc to search around for the caculator. Instead, I type ctrl alt c and the program instantly jumps onto the screen.

This shortcut will work with any program that is on the Start Menu. For now, I'll show you how to make a shortcut that will open Internet Explorer. All you have to do to set it up is to find the program on the Start Menu in XP or Vista and then right-click it. In the dialog box that appears from that, click Properties. Then, click the Shortcut box and click inside the Shortcut Key box and it will go blank. Now press the letter on your keyboard that you want to use to start the program. Make it easy to remember, for example, press I for Microsoft Internet Explorer. Once you type the single letter i, Windows does the rest so that the box will read Ctrl + Alt + I. It doesn't matter if you entered a capital i or a little i. So click OK and you're done. All right, click Apply and then OK but you don't really have to.

Now you can delete that stupid Internet Explorer icon shortcut from your Desktop because now all you have to do to open IE is type three keys - Ctrl Alt I.

Hold down Ctrl Then Alt and Then the Letter

You can use this on any shortcut but it works most reliably on shortcuts that are in the Start Menu. You can make a shortcut to anything and drag it into the Start Menu. You can get really creative with this. I use Ctrl + Alt + Y to open Yahoo in Firefox and I use Ctrl + Alt + G to open my iGoogle page in Firefox. I use these keyboard shortcuts dozens of times a day. You should consider using this method to open any program or Web page that you frequently use. Pretty soon it will become second nature to you and you'll wonder how you managed without it.

Cut, Copy and Paste

In any Windows program you can use Edit in the menu at the left-hand top of the page to copy something that you have highlighted to the Clipboard. And you can use Edit to Paste the text or image that has been placed on your Clipboard into another document or another section of the document you're working on. But you don't need to do that. Once you have something highlighted that you want to copy to the Clipboard, just hold down the Ctrl key and type the letter c and it's sent to your Clipboard. Then make your curser blink at the place where you want to place the copied material and use Ctrl v and it's pasted there. If the highlighted text or image is something you want to remove from where it is and place it somewhere else, use the Cut command. But don't muck around with Edit in the menu to do that. Use the keyboard shortcutt Ctrl x and it's gone and saved to your Clipboard. Now you can paste it anywhere you want with Ctrl v. And you can save your work in any Windows program with Ctrl s. You really don't need to mouse up to File and click that and then click Save.

Copy, Cut, Paste and Undo

Speaking of highlighting text, here's a few tips on how to do that. Let's say you wanted to highlight the last part of my last sentence so that you could copy that to your clipboard in order to paste it into another document you're working on. To do that you need to make your curser begin blinking at the beginning of the word here's and then move your mouse's arrow (it may look like the letter I) to the end of the word that and then hold down the Shift key and click your mouse. This will highlight the phrase here's a few tips on how to do that. If you want to highlight a single word, just double-click it. You probably already knew that but here's something you may not know - you can highlight an entire paragraph by triple-clicking anywhere inside it. Give it a try. Triple-click anywhere inside this paragraph. Of course you can highlight this entire page or any entire page by using Ctrl a. To undo highlights just click anywhere on the page.

Below are two lists of keyboard shortcuts that I use a lot. The second list uses the Windows key or the Win Key. If you have a WinKey it will be the key with the flag on it between your Ctrl key and your Alt key. This is by no means a listing of all of the keyboard shortcuts. If I've left off some of your favorites, email me and I'll include yours to the lists below.

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