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Windows etc - Useful Shortcuts



Dick Knights Mumm

Take me Home Falmer Road
Jul 5, 2003
19,736
Hither and Thither
After the very useful posting from Gillivers Travels:

Word: hignlight text, Shift-F3 toggles between Caps/Lower Case/First letter capitalised.

What other tips and shortcuts do you use ?

I use Start Button-E to open up Windows Explorer. And am always using Alt-Tab to tab between running applications.

Any more ?
 




Superphil

Dismember
Jul 7, 2003
25,679
In a pile of football shirts
I am a bit old fashioned having used PCs since before the proliferation of the use of mouses.

I use Alt commands all the time. Alt A P P for example aligns everyting to the centre of the page in the graphics software I use. Alt A P L aligns lefts. Alf F S is of course a classic, as is Control O. Alt F4 can be usefull too.

All in all, I can do most things in most software without the use of a mouse. It's much the same on OS X (Macs) expecially as you generally only have one mouse button, so the Command Key comes into use a lot more.
 


TWOCHOICEStom

Well-known member
Sep 22, 2007
10,911
Brighton
I find that using Ctrl Alt Delete all of the time works for me... Then I get myself down to the mac shop to buy a proper computer ;)
 




TonyW

New member
Feb 11, 2004
2,525
Then spends 6 months trying to find some software that works on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 




REDLAND

Active member
Jul 7, 2003
9,443
At the foot of the downs
I find that using Ctrl Alt Delete all of the time works for me... Then I get myself down to the mac shop to buy a proper computer ;)

Amen to that :)
 


Herne Hill Seagull

Well-known member
Jul 10, 2003
2,985
Galicia
I find that using Ctrl Alt Delete all of the time works for me... Then I get myself down to the mac shop to buy a proper computer ;)

What he said. I have to use a PC at work, having been a Mac man for as long as I can remember and certainly a Mac user at home, and they're archaic, steam powered, wind-up, Tomy 'My-First-Computer', made in Taiwan, useless frustrating chod when compared to a Mac.
 






lost in london

Well-known member
Dec 10, 2003
1,838
London
A few that I use, some probably really obvious to some, but weren't to me till recently.

Hold down control and use the roller on your mouse to zoom in and out.

Highlight a whole sentence hold CTRL and click anywhere on the sentence.

CTRL [ or CTRL ] to change font size.

CTRL + 1 for single line spacing, CTRL + 2 for double line spacing, and CTRL + 5 for one and a half spacing.

And of course F5 to refresh a web page.
 








Superphil

Dismember
Jul 7, 2003
25,679
In a pile of football shirts
I find that using Ctrl Alt Delete all of the time works for me... Then I get myself down to the mac shop to buy a proper computer ;)

Wish my Mac was as reliable as my PC, then I would use it all the time, oh, and if I could run all the software on it that I want to. Then again, it is better for iTunes and it runs Photoshop more swiftly than my PC so I get the best of both worlds.

Having said all that, I am getting rid of the Mac now I have lovely Vista Ultimate running beautifully. Can't afford/justify upgrading the Mac just to do music and photos when will Realplayer works fine on the PC for all I need, and you can still use iTunes. Adobe CS3 is on it's way to me next week, which is apparently superb on Vista, don't think its 64bit though.

Each the their own, might go for an Intel Mac next time so I can run both OSs and truely get the best of both.
 


haardman

Active member
Jul 29, 2005
100
Alt-Tab is the king of keyboard shortcuts ((hold Shift to go backwards), click with the mouse to select one directly, or use left & right arrows (all with the Alt key held down). (Win-Tab is the Vista fluffy Aero alternative that I never use).

Alt-PrtScr copies the current window (in focus) to the clipboard

Ctrl-End or Ctrl-Home jumps to end of doc/start of doc (add Shift to select)
In all file explorer windows:
when selecting files: hold down Shift to select a block of files, use Ctrl and the mouse to select/deselect files.
when dragging files: hold down Shift to move the file(s) & Ctrl to copy the file(s)

Ctrl-Right Arrow moves one word to the right (add Shift to select)
Ctrl-Esc brings up the Start menu (on old PC's without the new button)
Ctrl-Shift-Esc brings up the Task Manager
ALt-Space brings up the Control Menu for the current window (thus Alt-Space X, maximises, etc..

Also if you use multiple monitors (or widescreen for that matter) checkout Winsplit Revolution - has some really neat keyboard ((and mouse) shortcuts for moving/resizing windows.
 






pasty

A different kind of pasty
Jul 5, 2003
31,038
West, West, West Sussex
I am a bit old fashioned having used PCs since before the proliferation of the use of mouses.

I use Alt commands all the time. Alt A P P for example aligns everyting to the centre of the page in the graphics software I use. Alt A P L aligns lefts. Alf F S is of course a classic, as is Control O. Alt F4 can be usefull too.

All in all, I can do most things in most software without the use of a mouse. It's much the same on OS X (Macs) expecially as you generally only have one mouse button, so the Command Key comes into use a lot more.

Me to. And half the bloody alt commands don't work properly in Office 2007:rant:
 


blackprince

New member
Jul 16, 2007
210
If youy are using Windows XP, go into help and support and search on windows keybord shortcuts overview. Once in the help page in turn click on each highlighted text against General, Dialog, Natural, Accessibility and Windows Explorer. About one hundred shortcuts are listed in total
 




bhaexpress

New member
Jul 7, 2003
27,627
Kent
I'm using a Mac here which runs Vista under VM, a regular handful. We have two Macs beside this one the remaining 120 computers are PCs. Frankly I don't have an opinion one way or another as to which is better save the fact that if this machine runs in native Mac mode it won't run many of the firm's applications.

However, in terms of short cuts the ones I have used for years are Ctrl & C, Ctrl & V and Ctrl & X. Just can't be bothered to remember any others.

I will say this though, I have pretty much built a new PC at home to run Vista Business 64 Bit, the only thing internally I haven't replaced is the WiFi card. Guess what ? The one thing I am having troubles with is the Netgear WiFi card and there doesn't seem to be a 64 bit driver ! It's not hard to see why so many people prefer Macs ! The only reason I have installed Vista is so that I can get used to it for work purposes. Were it not for that I would have stuck with XP.
 








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