Windows Keyboard Shortcut of the Day

Sometimes you just want to see the Task Manager, which gives you a list of which applications and processes are running, lets you run new programs, and lets you kill programs.

Credit for today’s tip goes to Jake, who left a comment earlier: Ctrl+Shift+Esc will instantly produce the Task Manager.

We’ve covered a lot of Ctrl+D shortcuts previously (fill down in Excel, duplicate slide in PowerPoint, bookmark in IE and Firefox), so it’s understandable if you get a little confused about what Ctrl+D does in each application.

But, if you spend a lot of time in Microsoft Word, you might want to memorize this one and practice it today: Ctrl+D brings up the Font dialog box in Word, where you can change the font face, the font size, the font color, and a few other special formatting options. (Don’t forget you can press Ctrl+Tab to change the tabs in the dialog box to change character spacing and special effects.)

If you have selected text, pressing Ctrl+D will apply the font changes to whatever’s selected. Otherwise, if nothing’s selected, it’ll affect what you type next.

In Word, sometimes you want to create what’s called a “hanging indent” (where the first line of a paragraph is at the usual spot on the left margin, but all the subsequent lines in that paragraph are moved in to the next tab stop).

Find a paragraph that’s more than one line long, hit Ctrl+T, and you can see how it looks for yourself. Press it several times if you want to indent the second and later lines to the next tab stop.

Suppose you create a text box, and then an arrow, and move them together. Then suppose you need to move them a few times. It’s annoying to have to move each item separately, so you’ll usually want to “group” them into one object. Sure, you could find the menu commands to do that — but it’s much easier to select the two items you want, then press Ctrl+Shift+G.

Note: You can use Tab to select an object (just keep pressing Tab until the object you want is selected), but there’s no way that I know of to select multiple objects in PowerPoint via the keyboard.

Once an object is grouped, just use the arrow keys to move it around.

Select some text in Word or PowerPoint, then press Shift+F3. It’ll toggle between three possibilities for text capitalization:

• Initial Letter Case
• ALL CAPS CASE
• lower case

So, if you have selected some text like “siX MILlion Dollar mAn” each time you press Shift+F3 you’ll see it switch between “SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN” and “six million dollar man” and “Six Million Dollar Man”.

However! If you add some punctuation (like a period) at the end of what’s selected, instead of using Initial Letter Case, it’ll only capitalize the first letter of the sentence. So “I wiN!” will toggle between “I WIN!” and “i win!” and “I win!” (and not ever show “I Win!”).

Bonus tip today! This follows from the earlier tip about Ctrl+Shift+Drag to create a shortcut, as well as yesterday’s tip about Ctrl+Drag to copy a file.

Let’s be complete: Suppose you’re still using the mouse to drag a file icon somewhere. And let’s suppose you’re about to drag it to a folder for a different drive (such as your A: drive or a second hard drive like D:, or a network drive like U:). Normally Windows will make a copy when you drag a file between two different drives. But if you hold down the Shift key, it’ll move the file instead.

Note that when you have the Ctrl key held down (or are dragging the file to the same drive), the ghosted-out image of the file’s icon has a little “+” in it to show it’s about to be copied.

If you have either the Alt or Ctrl+Shift keys held down, the file’s icon has a little arrow to show it’s about to be created as a shortcut.

If you have the Shift key held down, the icon is normal to show it’s being moved.

(By the way, instead of remembering all this confusing stuff about Shift or Ctrl or Alt), another choice is to use the right mouse button when dragging instead of the left mouse button. Then when you let go of the button, you will get a shortcut menu asking you what to do with the file you’re dragging. You can use the arrow keys and Enter to select your menu choice instead of clicking on the choice you want.)

Next week we’ll talk about how to use keys with the Windows Explorer so that you never have to bother with dragging a file ever again.

If you have a selected file and press Ctrl+Shift while you drag it, it will create a shortcut — a pointer. This pointer can then be put on the Start menu or placed on your desktop, or put in a folder if you need a quick way to reference the original file.

When you have to use a mouse and you drag a file into a folder, normally it gets moved (assuming you’re moving it on the same drive). If you hold down the Ctrl key while you drag the file, the file is copied instead. You’ll end up with one copy in the original location, and one copy in the new folder you dragged it to.

Previously, we saw that you can edit a cell in Excel using the F2 key.

We also have discussed dialog boxes and working with files using the Windows Explorer. In order to quickly rename a selected file, just press F2. It works a little like editing a cell in Excel.

Try this one in Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint: Select some text that has some formatting you like. Hit Ctrl+Shift+C to copy the formatting into the clipboard (nothing visible will happen).

Now scroll elsewhere and select some different text. Press Ctrl+Shift+V. Now that formatting you had copied is applied to the selected text. Magic!

To quickly remove all formatting and return text to normal, select it (in Word or PowerPoint) and hit Ctrl+Spacebar. Goodbye ugly fonts!

Ctrl+J opens up a list of the files you’ve recently downloaded.

Maybe you’ll never need this one, but sometimes you want to see the actual HTML code used to create a web page.

In Firefox, go to the page you want to view and then press Ctrl+U. A new Window appears with the HTML code visible and colored appropriately.

(In Internet Explorer, you can press Alt+V to open the View menu, then press C to select the Source command. A Notepad window appears with the HTML code available for editing.)

Remember, Alt+F4 closes a window — use that when you’re done looking at the source HTML code.

Press Ctrl+B and a new pane appears on the left side of your Firefox browser: The Bookmarks pane. Your cursor will automatically appear in the search box. Type in a few letters, and only those pages you’ve bookmarked that include those letters are listed. Press Tab to jump down to the results, and then press Enter on the one you want to open. Press Ctrl+B again to toggle off the Bookmarks pane.

(Note that in Internet Explorer, Ctrl+B lets you organize your bookmarks.)

Following on from yesterday’s tip, you can repeat a find (looking further on the page for the text you want) in two different ways.

One easy way is press Ctrl+F to re-open the Find box at the bottom of the screen, then press Enter. Each time you press Enter, you’ll jump down to the next occurrence of the text you’re looking for. (Note that this also works in Internet Explorer.)

Another way is you can press Alt+N to search for the Next example (as long as the Find box is visible).

It’s time for another week of Firefox shortcuts.

Firefox is the open-source Web browser from Mozilla; learn more about it (and download it for free) here.

I previously reported that you can use Ctrl+F to Find text. Well, in Firefox, you can do it even faster — just hit the slash key (down on the lower right, next to the period and right Shift key).

Immediately your cursor will move to a Quick Find box at the bottom of the screen. Type in the text that you want to find on the current page in your browser, and you’ll automatically jump to the appropriate place and see that text highlighted.

I mentioned this one back in this Explorer shortcut post, but it deserves being spelled out on its own: When you see a file in a directory folder (such as when opening or saving a file, or when using the Windows Explorer), you can delete a file normally by using the Delete key. It then goes to the Trashcan, where you can undelete it.

If you have a sensitive file or a big file that you don’t want taking up disk space, press Shift+Delete to delete it instead. It won’t appear in the Trashcan, it’s just gone with only one confirmation dialog box to confirm.

Change your mind? You can press Ctrl+Z to Undo the delete operation, but don’t wait too long.

If your computer is on a network (such as when you’re at work) and you want to find a computer based on its name, press the Windows key plus Ctrl plus the letter F, then type in the computer’s name and press Enter.

Once a list of computers is returned, you can press the Up and Down Arrow keys to select the computer you want to access, and then press Enter to see the list of shared folders and printers available on that computer.

To search for files and folders on your computer, try Windows key plus F.

Related to yesterday’s tip, Windows key plus the Shift key plus the letter m will undo your “minimize all” action.

We started covering the Windows key back when the blog first started on February 23. (Recall that the Windows key by itself will show the Start menu; combined with different keystrokes, you can perform other useful tasks.)

One of the most useful shortcuts we covered is Windows key+D to show the Desktop. Related to that is a similar keystroke: Windows key+M will minimize all of the open applications that can be minimzied, showing only dialog boxes. Try it out!

(If you want to minimize only the current window, try this minimize shortcut.)

The “Run” dialog box from the Windows Start menu is a handy way to open an application or document. Usually you would select it from the Start menu, but a shortcut is to press the Windows key and R.

Once you’ve got the Run dialog box open, you can type in the name of a program and then Enter. Here are some popular ones:

• cmd: Command prompt for running DOS-style commands
• notepad: The Notepad app
• sol: Solitaire
• winword: Microsoft Word

If you’re in the Windows Explorer or viewing files when using File | Open (usually Ctrl+O) or File | Save (usually Ctrl+S), and you want to move up a directory level (for example, move from U:\DOCUMENTS\2007 to U:\DOCUMENTS), then press the Backspace key.

In quite a few applications, you can press Alt+Enter to open a Properties dialog box (which displays information about the selected object).

For example, suppose you press the Windows key+E to open the Windows Explorer. As you navigate around, suppose you want to know more information about a folder or drive or file. Press Alt+Enter and you’ll get a Properties dialog box.