Recipe 4.12. Using Keyboard Application Shortcuts

Problem

You want to perform common t asks such as opening, closing, or printing a document, more quickly than you can by using the mouse and clicking menu items and dialog boxes.

Solution

List of keyboard shortcuts

Every application has its own set of keyboard shortcuts for performing common tasks,. But there are some shortcuts that tend to work for many different applications, not just one.

Table 4-6 lists the most common and useful keyboard shortcuts. Keep in mind that not all work with every application.

Table 4-6. Common keyboard application shortcuts

Key combination	What the combination does
Alt-F4	Closes the current window or file.
Ctrl-A	Selects the whole document.
Ctrl-B	Turns text bold.
Ctrl-C	Copies highlighted data to the Clipboard.
Ctrl-D	Displays a font dialog box, or switches between monospaced and proportional fonts.
Ctrl-E	Centers text or an object in the document.
Ctrl-F	Displays a Find or Search dialog box.
Ctrl-G	Displays a GoTo dialog box.
Ctrl-H	Displays a Replace dialog box.
Ctrl-I	Turns text italic.
Ctrl-J	Justifies text in the document.
Ctrl-L	Moves the text or object to the left part of the document.
Ctrl-N	Creates a new document.
Ctrl-O	Displays the Open dialog box.
Ctrl-P	Displays the Print dialog box.
Ctrl-Q	Exits the application.
Ctrl-R	Moves the text or object to the right part of the document.
Ctrl-S	Saves the document or opens a Save dialog box.
Ctrl-U	Underlines text.
Ctrl-V	Pastes highlighted data from the Clipboard into the document.
Ctrl-X	Cuts the highlighted data and places it in the Clipboard.
Ctrl-Z	Undoes the last action.
Ctrl-Insert	Copies highlighted data to the Clipboard.
Shift-Insert	Pastes highlighted data from the Clipboard into the document.
Tab	Moves to the next cell in a table.
Shift-Tab	Moves to the previous cell in a table.
Ctrl-Arrow	Moves the cursor forward one word or object.
Ctrl-Back Arrow	Moves the cursor backwards one word or object.
Alt-Hyphen	Opens a menu that lets you restore, move, size, minimize, maximize, or close the current window.
Ctrl-Space Bar	Opens a menu that lets you restore, move, size, minimize, maximize, or close the current window.
Ctrl-End	Moves to the end of the document.
Ctrl-Home	Moves to the beginning of the document.
Ctrl-F6	Switches between documents.
Ctrl-F4	Closes the current window or file.

Discussion

Don't expect every one of these standard shortcuts to work for every Windows application, because they won't. But as a general rule, they'll work with most, especially with Microsoft Office applications. But even in Office, there are anomalies, and they can sometimes get you into trouble. In Outlook, for example, if you're reading an email, and use the Ctrl-F keyboard shortcut to find text in the email, you'll instead create a new email message, one that includes the existing email in it already. In Outlook, you use F4 to find text in an email message.

See Also

MS KB 301583, "List of the keyboard shortcuts that are available in Windows XP"; list of shortcuts for many Microsoft applications athttp://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/keyboard.aspx; MSDN information about keyboard shortcuts at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/csui/html/csconKeyboardShortcuts.asp; list of the Elder Geek's shortcuts for XP at http://www.theeldergeek.com/keyboard_shortcuts_for_xp.htm