– Shortcuts

In our first posting about Essential Keyboard Shortcuts, we went over some really basic ones. This time we’re going to go over a few more that everyone should know and use daily. (The more you use them, the better you’ll get at using them.) As before, where there is more than one possible keystroke, I underline the one I like, but you’re welcome to use any that work.

File, rather than content:

• Create new document – Ctrl-N
• Open existing document – Ctrl-O or Ctrl-F12
• Save document – Ctrl-S or Shift-F12 or Alt-Shift-F2 (Save often, to avoid losing your work)
• Save document as new file name – Alt-F, A or F12 (use a timestamp, to keep track of version)
• Close document – Ctrl-W
• Print document – Ctrl-P or Ctrl-F2 or Ctrl-Shift-F12

Window instead of content:

• Switch windows – Alt-Tab (to get to other programs)
• Maximize the document window – Alt-Space, X or Ctrl-F10 (so you only see this one)
• Restore window down from maximize – Alt-Space, R or Alt-F5 (so you can see multiple windows)
• Minimize window – Alt-Space, N (hide it for a while, when you’re working on something else)
• Close single document – Ctrl-F4 (if you’re done with just this one)
• Quit program, close all docs and window – Alt-F4 (if you’re done with all open documents)
• Expand or collapse the ribbon – Ctrl-F1 (gives you more room to see the important part)
• Go to the next document window – Ctrl-F6 (if you have multiple documents open)
• Go to the previous document window – Ctrl-Shift-F6
• Go to the next pane or frame – F6 (access other parts of the screen)
• Go to the previous pane or frame – Shift-F6

Undo and Redo:

• Undo the last action Ctrl-Z
• Redo the last action Ctrl-Y or F4

Help and Cancel:

• Open help – F1
• Cancel – Esc (“I keep hitting escape, but I’m still here.”)

Informational:

• Word Count – Ctrl-Shift-G (you need to know that you’re progressing)
• Start spellcheck and grammar check – F7 (useful, but not always right)
• Go to next spelling or grammatical error – Alt-F7
• Open thesaurus – Shift-F7 (handy if you keep using the same words over and over)

That’s about it for now. We’ll hit a few more useful ones in a later post.

For our first posting on keyboard shortcuts, we are going to present some really basic ones. We don’t want to jump ahead (as much as we’d really enjoy doing that), so this list may seem a bit rudimentary, but that’s our intent. Even folks who’ve used computers for years may have not seen all these, so pay attention—you may actually learn something.

Moving around:

• Right one character – Right Arrow
• Left one character – Left Arrow
• Down one line – Down Arrow
• Up one line – Up Arrow

• Beginning of current line – Home
• End of current line – End
• Beginning of document – Ctrl+Home
• End of document – Ctrl+End

• Right one word – Ctrl+Right Arrow
• Left one word – Ctrl+Left Arrow
• Beginning of next paragraph – Ctrl+Down Arrow
• Beginning of previous paragraph – Ctrl+Up Arrow

The next group would involve selecting text, but instead of listing them all again, I’ll just point out that if you hold Shift and use any of the above, you’ll select the text as you move across it.

Now then, here are a few useful ones for moving large distances throughout your document. (Where there is more than one option for keystrokes, I’ve underlined the one I prefer, but you are welcome to develop any habits you find convenient.)

• Cycle through the last four edit locations – Shift+F5 or Ctrl+Alt+Z
• Go to Find field in Navigation pane – Ctrl+F
• Next find (after doing find) – Ctrl+Page Down
• Previous find (after doing find) – Ctrl+Page Up

• Display Find and Replace dialog with Find (advanced) tab selected – Ctrl+H, Alt+D
• Display Find and Replace dialog with Replace tab selected – Ctrl+H
• Display Find and Replace dialog with Go To tab selected – Ctrl+G or F5

Cutting (and pasting)

We’ll cover how to use the Spike in a later post.

• Delete one character to left – Backspace
• Delete one character to the right – Delete
• Delete one word to left – Ctrl+Backspace
• Delete one word to right – Ctrl+Delete

• Copy text to clipboard – Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Insert
• Cut text to clipboard – Ctrl+X or Shift+Delete
• Paste text from clipboard – Ctrl+V or Shift+Insert

Formatting characters:

• Bold – Ctrl+B
• Italics – Ctrl+I
• Underline – Ctrl+U
• Underline words only – Ctrl+Shift+W
• Double-underline – Ctrl+Shift+D

• Superscript – Ctrl+Shift+Plus Sign
• Subscript – Ctrl+Equal Sign

• Uppercase – Ctrl+Shift+A
• Change case – Shift+F3 (cycles through upper, lower, sentence/title)
• Small Caps – Ctrl+Shift+K

• Increase font by 1 point – Ctrl+[
• Decrease font by 1 point – Ctrl+]
• Increase font one preset size – Ctrl+Shift+ >
• Decrease font one preset size – Ctrl+Shift+<

Formatting paragraphs:

• Single line spacing – Ctrl+1
• 1.5 line spacing – Ctrl+5
• Double line spacing – Ctrl+2

• Left align – Ctrl+L
• Right align – Ctrl+R
• Center align – Ctrl+E
• Justify – Ctrl+J

• Heading 1 style – Ctrl+Alt+1
• Heading 2 style – Ctrl+Alt+2
• Heading 3 style – Ctrl+Alt+3
• Bulleted list – Ctrl-Shift-L

That’ll have to do for now. We’ll get into more interesting (and useful) shortcuts later.