Answer Line: Use Your Keyboard for Faster Windows Control

I recently discovered some great new keyboard shortcuts. What are some of your favorites?

Qing Yuan Ong, Stanford, California

We tend to think of Windows as a mousing environment, but it's often easier to get from place to place, file to file, or app to app using keystroke combinations. Below you will find some useful keyboard shortcuts.

First, some quick definitions of two keys found on Windows keyboards: The Windows key is the one with the Windows logo. The Application key is the one with the illustration of a mouse pointer selecting from a menu. Note that many keyboards have two Alt keys and two Ctrl keys, and some key combinations work with one but not with the other.

Start faster: Instead of clicking the Start button, press either Ctrl-Esc or Windows to open the Start menu. To select an item from the menu, hit the underlined letter in the menu option's name (or the first letter if none is underlined). For example, to get to the Run box in a jiff, type Windows-R. You can also navigate the menus via cursor keys (Home, Page Down, the arrow keys, and so on). Bonus tip: Hold down Windows while you repeatedly press Tab to cycle through the buttons on your taskbar.

Zip around your desktop: Holding down Alt while you repeatedly press Tab cycles you through your open applications. Pressing Alt-Space opens the control menu in the upper-left corner of the current application window. Close the current application by pressing Alt-F4. Bonus tip: To open the control menu in the upper-left corner of the current document window in Office and in some other applications, press Alt-Hyphen; and to close the current document, type Ctrl-F4.

Pressing Shift-F10 or Application will bring up the context menu for the selected object--the same as right-clicking it. Windows-M and Windows-D minimize all open windows and return you to the desktop. Shift-Windows-M reopens all the windows ( Windows-D will restore them, too, if that's the key combination you used to minimize them). Bonus tip: In Windows Explorer, folder windows, and the desktop, press Alt-Enter to open a selected object's Properties dialog box, and Windows-Break to open System Properties (the Break key is on the upper right of most keyboards).

Rush through menus: Alt and F10 take you to the current window's menu bar. Once there, you can navigate with the arrow keys, or quickly pop open a menu item by pressing its underlined letter ( Alt then V to open the View menu, for example). After the menu is open, press the option's underlined letter to select it. For instance, in many programs, pressing Alt followed by F followed by P opens the File menu, then selects the Print option--no key combinations needed.

Explore in an instant: Enter Windows-E to launch Windows Explorer, then just press Backspace to move to the parent folder of your current folder. Type F2 to rename the selected folder or file, and F3 to search for a file.

Make short(cut) work of files and documents: These shortcuts aren't necessarily part of Windows itself, but they are supported by many applications:

Ctrl-S saves your current work to disk. Get in the habit of pressing this often.

Ctrl-O opens a new document.

Ctrl-Z and Alt-Backspace undo the last thing you did (often repeatedly).

Ctrl-Y undoes the last undo (or redoes).

Ctrl-A selects everything in the open window, whether it's all the files in a folder, or the entire document.

Ctrl-X deletes the selection and moves it to the clipboard.

Ctrl-C copies the selection to the clipboard without deleting it.

Ctrl-V pastes the clipboard contents into the active program or onto the desktop.

Ctrl-I turns italics on or off.

Ctrl-B turns bold on or off.

Ctrl-U turns underlining on or off.

Ctrl-F and F3 launch the program's search or find tool.

Ctrl-Home moves the cursor to the beginning of the open file or document.

Ctrl-End moves the cursor to the end of the open file or document.

Ctrl-Tab, Ctrl-Shift-Tab, Ctrl-Page Down, and Ctrl-Page Up move you from tab to tab in a dialog box.

Microsoft Office 2000 and 2002:

Ctrl-C twice displays Office's clipboard.

Ctrl-Down Arrow expands the currently displayed menu to full length.

F5 or Ctrl-G opens the Go To dialog.

Shift-F5 takes you to a previous revision--or in a newly opened document, to where the insertion point was when the document was last closed.

F7 launches the spelling checker.

Microsoft Word 2000 and 2002:

Ctrl-Space turns on default formatting (Normal style) for subsequent typing or the current selection.

Ctrl-0 (zero above the letter keys) adds or removes a line's worth of spacing above the current paragraph(s).

Ctrl-1 (above the letter keys) converts the current paragraph or selected paragraphs to single-line spaces.

Ctrl-2 (above the letter keys) double-spaces the current paragraph(s).

Ctrl-5 (above the letter keys) applies 1.5-line spacing to the current paragraph(s).

Alt-5 (on the numeric keypad) selects the entire current table.

Alt-Shift-D inserts an updating date.

Alt-Shift-T inserts an updating time.

Shift-F7 launches the thesaurus.

Excel 2000 and 2002:

Ctrl-Space selects the current column.

Shift-Space selects the current row.

Ctrl-Semicolon inserts the date.

Ctrl-Colon inserts the time.

Ctrl-Double Quote enters a copy of the cell above (without formatting).

Ctrl-1 will bring up the Excel Format Cells dialog box.

Ctrl-Page Up and Ctrl-Page Down move up and down through worksheets.

Ctrl-Enter instead of just Enter after entering data into one of several preselected cells will put the data in all those cells.

Internet Explorer:

Ctrl-O brings up the Open dialog box for browsing to another Web site.

Ctrl-N opens a new browser window to your home page.

Alt-D selects the Address bar.

Backspace is the same as choosing the Back button.

Shift-Backspace is the same as clicking the Forward button.