Increase your productivity - keep your hands on the keyboard
There’s more than one way to skin a cat
- especially true when using computers.
For example, within Windows, if you want to copy a piece of text there are at least 4 ways to perform that particular task. First, we select the text we are after and then either:
- From the edit menu, choose ‘Copy‘
- From the toolbar choose the ‘Copy‘ button or icon
- Right-click on the selected text and choose ‘Copy‘ from the context menu that appears
- Use the keyboard shortcut ‘CTRL + C‘
Notice the first three of these operations all involve using the mouse, but point 4 lets you keep your hands in the same place - on the keyboard where you are already. When you’re in the middle of typing something, having to reach for the mouse every time you need to perform a simple operartion like copying or pasting isn’t a particularly efficient way of doing things.
If you want to take your first steps toward becoming a ‘computer whiz’, master a few of the most common keyboard shortcuts. Most of them are very easy to remember and apply across every different software application you come across. In the examples below, to perform a keyboard shortcut, select your text and then press and hold the first key while pressing the second.
Moving text around
- CTRL+C: Copy
- CTRL+X: Cut (X - think scissors)
- CTRL+V: Paste
Formatting text
- CTRL+B: Bold
- CTRL+U: Underline
- CTRL+I: Italic
OK. So that’s all well and good, but don’t you have to use the mouse to select the text in the first place?
Selecting text with the keyboard
Being forced to use a mouse for text selection, would be very silly. The keyboard can be a much quicker (and far more accurate) way of selecting text.
Using the cursor or arrow keys (the 4 keys located to the right hand side of the ‘Enter‘ key on most keyboards) position the insertion point (the blinking line, where your text goes when you type) at the beginning of a word or phrase you want to copy and then press and hold down the ‘SHIFT‘ key while pressing the ‘right‘ arrow key to select the text. Each key press selects another character. Keep doing that until you have the text selected then perform one of the operations above. Notice how the text selection has a different colour background as if you had a clicked and drag your mouse across it to select it.
To select all the text in a document, use CTRL+A
Experiment with the other direction keys while holding down ‘SHIFT‘ you’ll soon find it second nature to select text with the keyboard.
The whole process
So, to move a chunk of text around in a document:
- Move around with the cursor keys to the text you need to copy or paste
- Select the text using the ‘SHIFT‘ and cursor keys
- Copy the text with CTRL+C
- Move the insertion point using the cursor keys to the location where you want to paste the text
- Paste the text using CTRL+V
Voila! …and we haven’t reached for the mouse once!
Other keyboard shortcuts you’ll find useful
- CTRL+Z: Undo
- Windows key: Start menu
- Windows key+R: Run dialog box
- Windows Logo+F1: Help
- Windows Logo+E: Windows Explorer
- Windows Logo+F: Find files or folders
- Windows Logo+D: Minimizes all open windows and displays the desktop
I’ll add more as I get the chance….
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