Very recently I had a conversation all about how useful certain keyboard short cuts are, and how useful it would be to have a list of all the good ones. So I set about digging around and collecting together a list of all the really useful keyboard shortcuts that we all use at British Design Experts day-to-day. It seemed to us that this might be useful to a lot of our clients and followers, so we thought we’d put all our favourites down here on the blog.
The Top 7 – if you don’t know them, how do you live without them?
- Copy – (Ctrl + C)
- Cut – (Ctrl + X)
- Paste (Ctrl + V)
- Undo (Ctrl + Z)
- Refresh (F5)
- Save As – (F12)
- Change selected text to upper/lower case – (Shift + F3)
Useful everyday – Microsoft Office and beyond
Lots of keyboard shortcuts which are standard in Microsoft Office will also have the same function in other programmes.
- Select All – (Ctrl + A)
- Insert Hyperlink – (Ctrl + K)
- Print Preview – (Alt + Ctrl + I)
- Bold selected text- (Ctrl + B)
- Open search box to find words – (Ctrl + F)
- Open search and replace box – (Ctrl + H)
- Put selected text in italics (Ctrl + I)
- Open new blank document/new browser/project – (Ctrl + N)
- Open document – (Ctrl + O)
- Print document – (Ctrl + P)
- Save document/file/programme – (Ctrl + S)
- Underline selected text – (Ctrl + U)
- Zoom in – (Ctrl + +)
- Zoom out – (Ctrl + -)
- Return to original size – (Ctrl + 0)
Moving the cursor through (and highlighting) text – great for editing
- Move cursor to beginning of the next word – (Ctrl + Right Arrow)
- Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous word – (Ctrl + Left Arrow)
- Move the cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph – (Ctrl + Down Arrow)
- Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous paragraph – (Ctrl + Up Arrow)
- Highlight a block of text – (Ctrl + Shift with any arrow key)
Selecting, moving and changing files and folders
- Permanently delete selected item – (Shift + Delete)
- Copy the selected file – (Ctrl while dragging an item)
- Create a shortcut to the selected item – (Ctrl + Shift while dragging an item)
- Rename the selected item – (F2 key)
- Selecting multiple files which are next to each other (to copy or move lots of items) – (Shift + arrow keys until all the files are selected)
- Selecting multiple files not next to each other (to copy or move lots of items) – (Ctrl + click on each file)
Switching between tasks
- Close or exit active programme – (Alt + F4)
- Close active document open (in programmes where more than one document can be open at once, also works for tabs in browsers) – (Ctrl + F4)
- Switch between open items – (Alt + Tab)
- Display the Start menu – (Ctrl + Esc)
- Open Task Manager – (Ctrl + Shift + Esc)
Web Browser shortcuts
It’s particularly important to be aware of how to clear your cache and reload your website when you are checking to see that something has been fixed or updated.
- Clear Web history cache – (Ctrl + F5)
- Reload webpage – (Ctrl + R)
- Open new tab – (Ctrl + T)
- Close current tab – (Ctrl + W)
- Open Microsoft Developer Tools in Internet Explorer (allows you to view your website as it will look in different versions of internet explorer. For example, if you have IE9 this tool will allow you to see how your website looks in IE7) – (F12)
Shortcuts on other systems (Macs and beyond)
There is a really handy table of keyboard shortcuts on Wikipedia which displays what equivalent keyboard shortcuts are in Windows and on a Mac.
Being Useful
We like to share useful things – if there’s anything you find which you think is useful share it with us on facebook, Twitter or Google +. And if there is anything which you want to know more about just let us know – we’re always looking for new blog ideas that will be helpful.
Why don’t you take a look at some of our other blogs which we’ve been told have been really useful.
