Shortcut keys
Why?
To make life easier for youself: in many situations, using a keyboard shortcut is quicker than reaching for the mouse, finding the mouse pointer and moving it to exacly the right place on the screen before clicking.
Not everything is quicker with the keyboard but below are some shortcuts that have saved me many hours and a load of pain over many years.
Ctrl | + A | hold down the Ctrl key while pressing A |
Pick 1 new shortcut you think you’ll use and, once it’s second nature, come back and pick another.
Tab ⇤ | cycle through options (e.g. login/password boxes, boxes in a form, links in a web page, etc - hold Shift to cycle backwards) | |
Enter ↵ | submit a form (rather than clicking Submit or OK e.g. when signing in) | |
Alt | + Tab ⇤ | switch between open apps (hold Alt until you’ve highlighted the correct app) |
Shift | + | highlight text from the cursor (use  or ) |
| Tip: having highlighted a section of text, simply start typing to replace it - no need to press Backspace or Delete | ||
Ctrl | + S | “Save” universal in almost every application. Just remember to use it! |
Alt | underline (or highlight) “access keys” in menus (to select options using the keyboard) | |
Ctrl | + A | Select all (highlight all the text and objects in your document) | |
I | X | ||
W | X | ||
Shift | + A | X | |
| + A | X | ||
Delete | X | ||
Page Down | X | ||
| + A U U | Shut down | ||
| 1 | 2 | --- --- --- --- --- --- | 4 |
