Forum Discussion

Liz's avatar
Liz
Moderator
3 years ago

Share your Shortcuts!

This morning, I shared in another thread a keyboard shortcut I just learned today: ctrl+shift+v to paste text without formatting. It's useful for copying content from websites or emails and pasting without the text looking all wonky from the formatting from said websites or emails.

 

Apparently my co-workers knew this shortcut already, and I wish I knew earlier because I've been using a workaround that adds an extra step. 

 

Here are the ones I use the most (for Windows and Chrome):

Alt+F4 - This closes applications, and when there's none open, it will instead prompt if you want to shut down your PC/laptop. At the end of the day, I just spam Alt+F4 to close everything and power down.

 

Ctrl+Z/X/C/V - The holy tetralogy: undo, delete, copy, and paste.

 

Alt+Tab - For quickly switching between windows.

 

Alt+directional keys - If I'm navigating deep through the File Explorer and want to quickly look around in many folders, I use the keyboard instead of the mouse. Directional keys to move around, enter to open a folder, alt+up to go to the folder in the level above or alt+left to go to the previous folder.

 

Shift+N - This is a YouTube shortcut I've been using a lot recently. If you're watching videos in a playlist, this shortcut lets you go to the next video in the list. If you're not watching from a playlist, it seems to pull up a random(?) suggested video.

 

Left and right directional buttons - Another YouTube shortcut, just a way to scrub 5 seconds back or forward in the vid.

 

Ctrl+[number] - If you have a bunch of tabs open, you can quickly pull up a tab by hitting ctrl and the appropriate number. So if you have 3 tabs open and want to switch to the first tab, hit ctrl+1.

 

Windows key + L - I always lock my laptop when I step away from it; it's good practice for work, anyway. (I've heard stories of people pranking others because they left their machine unlocked LOL not here though).

 

I think that's about it. There are more Chrome shortcuts I'd like to memorize so looks like I need to try these out.

 

So I'm curious, what shortcuts do you use regularly? Maybe it's something helpful to someone else!

 

 

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  • Amanda's avatar
    Amanda
    Moderator
    3 years ago

    Thank you for posting this!! I always love sharing and learning new tips to make things go just a little faster, or a little easier 🙂

     

    Here's some of my faves:

     

    In Chrome: CTRL + SHIFT + T will re-open your last closed tab

    In Excel: Tap the F4 key to re-do the last action you just did. Need to bold multiple cells across different sheets? Bold something once, then F4 on any cell you want to bold after. 

    Speaking of bold... CTRL+B or 'i' will bold or italicize text in most applications

    Another YouTube trick: In addition to the arrow keys, you can use the ',' and '.' (comma and period keys or < >) to move frame-by-frame for more precise scrubbing.

     

    Looking forward to seeing everyones tricks!

  • GabeU's avatar
    GabeU
    Distinguished Professor IV
    3 years ago

    It's funny how in nearly 27 years of using Windows the only shortcut I've ever used is Ctrl+Alt+Del, though I did learn Win+. for emojis last year.  Even when using Notepad, Wordpad or Word I've never used keyboard shortcuts.  Practically everything I do with Windows, including opening programs and settings, I do with the mouse.

     

    Years ago I knew someone who was a programer/web designer, and she would zip through shortcut after shortcut like it was nothing. It was shocking how adept she was with it, as if she learned all of them as a part of learning to type.

  • MarkJFine's avatar
    MarkJFine
    Professor
    3 years ago

    Unsure if this works in Office 365 Windows, but I will have several spreadsheets open in Excel and run into the close all dilemma.
    Learned that Ctrl-Q will close all, but Ctrl-W will close just that one you're using at the moment (use the Cmd key (⌘) instead of Ctrl on Macs). Pretty sure that works in Word and Powerpoint as well.