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15 Keyboard Shortcuts To Enhance Your PC Productivity

What's Booming Topics Innovation Lifestyle Managing Marketing Money Technology The World Events OPEN Forum Mobile Matt Silverman Associate Features Editor, Mashable Recent posts
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July 1, 2011 If you fancy yourself a PC power user, you know how valuable it is to keep your hands on the keyboard. Constantly switching between typing and mousing can really slow you down when you're powering through that TPS report. Lucky for you, the wizards at Microsoft have built some time-saving (if littleknown) keyboard shortcuts into their operating systems over the years, with some really handy ones gracing Windows 7 and most modern Web browsers. If you're aiming to speed up your workflow and impress your colleagues at the same time, check out these little gems.

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1. Move the cursor one word at a time

Cut through large swaths of text with this handy trick.

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2. Select one word at a time

Similarly, you can highlight entire words in your text without pecking at those arrow keys.

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1570 1392 853 576 1538 542 986

Marketing, Advertising & Creative Services Information, Technology & WebBased Services Entertainment & Recreation Manufacturing Retail & Wholesale Trade Banking and Financial Services Construction, Industrials & Utilities

3. Delete entire words

Bulldoze those terrible sentences more efficiently with this shortcut.

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4. Select all text on the current line, relative to the cursor

Don't reach for that mouse. Instead of click-dragging the cursor, snap right or left with this fancy method.

5. Minimize all windows

Keep this macro in mind if you tend to browse Facebook at the office.

6. Cycle between windows

If you really want to show off the glitz of Windows 7, give this combo a try.

7. Lock the computer

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Stepping away from the screen for a light lunch? Lock that puppy down with one swift stroke, especially if it's April Fool's Day.

8. Launch the Task Manager

Applications acting up on you? Need to check your system's resources? Skip the clicking and get into the Task Manager with this shortcut.

9. Take a screenshot of the active window only

Trimming down screengrabs can be a pain, especially if you have a lot of desktop real estate. This shortcut lets you capture only the window you're working in.

10. Rename a file

Forgo that right-clicking nonsense and give this file renaming trick a shot. It also works great if you've selected multiple files or folders.

11. Zoom in and out

This one works in a variety of applications, including browsers, word processors, and Photoshop, among others.
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12. Return to default zoom

When you're ready to return to the normal view, strike this keyboard combo.

13. In browser: open a new tab

This one may be common, but it's worth mentioning if it will save users the effort of clicking up there in a mess of browser tabs.

14. In browser: reopen closed tab

This one can be a life-saver, especially if you've accidentally closed a webpage you've been searching diligently for.

15. In browser: focus cursor on URL/search field

If you need to navigate the Web quickly, this combo will get you moving in two keystrokes.

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Which time-saving macros do you use at your desk? Share them with the class in the comments below. Image credit: chromatix d-sign. Tips via Reddit.

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fivekitten about 7 hours ago
The first paragraph made me remember the day we first had to use a mouse at the office and I HATED it! I despised it and cursed that stupid mouse every day because I had to take my hands off the keyboard so much. Now of course you can't live without it! And I've found that shortcuts are helpful not only for speed, but also in case one of your kids decides to let your mouse sit in spilled ramean noodles for a day These are great tips some of which I wasn't aware of. Thank you!

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Michael Ramsey 6 days ago

Afew here I didn't know about. As already mentioned in comments, start + D is better than start + M. start + tab does nothing for me in Windows 7, I'll stick with alt + tab and alt + shift + tab. For renaming a file, you can just single click on the name, no need to use a special keyboard shortcut or the context menu. In my browsers I use a mouse gestures plugin. For instance, holding down right click and moving the mouse left goes back, right goes forward, up opens new tab, down closes it, left and right reopens last closed tab. Originally got into using mouse gestures in Opera, and they're really convenient. Firefox and Chrome have plugins to give you mouse gestures,

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Heather Silverthorn 17 days ago

Thank you for the helpful information. Please, post more.

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Maria Tseng 1 months ago

How about secret keyboard shortcuts for MS Office 93 power users to avoid having to learn the MS Office 97 point and click RIBBON? One that I figured out is Ctl+d to open the format dialog box.

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Philippe Fleury 1 months ago

Other ones :-) Browser Back/Forward button : shift + scroll on the mouse System Close application : Alt + F4 Save : Ctrl + S Save All : Ctrl + Shift + S (Does not work in all programs though. Have a good day. Phil

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Philippe Fleury 1 months ago

In Brower : Close tab : Ctrl + w (I prefer middle mouse button though) Search Field : Ctrl + k (firefox) Rotate tabs Forward: Ctrl + Tab (Works with many other programs using tabs) Rotate tabs Backward: Ctrl + Shift + Tab System Open run prompt : Windows + R This is one of my favorite, if you know a couple of commands. Here are a couple of examples : Open control panel : control Open word : winword Open excel : excel Open notepad : notepad Open paint : mspaint Open Internet Explorer : iexplore Open Firefox : firefox Thanks for this post. Learned 3 of 4 new ones. Really like the bulldozer.

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Aco Dueno 1 months ago

Fantastic keyboard shortcuts!

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Thomas Adams 1 months ago

Great info to save time I'm looking forward to using these shortcuts

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Mario Bonaparte 1 months ago

I use alt tab to jump from one window to another

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Marie McCooey 1 months ago

The difference between Windows + D and Windosw + M - Windows + D displays Desktop, when you press Win + D again it restores the precious windows displayed. - Windows + M - minimizes all windows, but will not restore them when repressed http://www.shortcutlibrary.com

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David Flapan 1 months ago

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