You have had to type long papers before right? Of course you have. Now you misplaced a sentence what do you do? Did you grab the mouse? I hope not because you just wasted time doing so when there are hundreds of keyboard commands for editing that were created when DOS was the de facto standard (dark ages) but they still work now and they are still the fastest way to get things done. Today I will teach you how to use keyboard commands to edit your work faster whether you are writing an essay with Word or a post here. The first thing you need to know is how to use the cursor control keys. The cursor I am talking about is not that arrow you use for the mouse. No the one I am talking about is that quaint little blinking bar the the right of what you just typed (assuming you haven't moved it). The cursor control keys are the arrow keys and the (on most keyboards) 3x2 block above the arrow keys. You may also notice that if you are using a PC the keys on the numpad also have the same things written on the, below the numbers as on the other 2 blocks of cursor control keys. These do exactly the same thing as the cursor control keys when num lock is off. The basic functions of these keys are as follows: -Up/Down arrows -- Move the cursor one line up or down -Left/Right -- Moves the cursor left or right one character -Home -- moves the cursor to the beginning of the current line -End -- moves the cursor to the end of the current line -Page Up/Down -- moves the cursor to the top or bottom of the current page (some programs define a page as where a new sheet of paper is use when printing others define it as where the screen is cut off the forum software is the latter of course) -Insert -- toggles overtype mode which causes typed text to replace the text to the right of the cursor instead of adding characters to the left. -Delete/Backspace -- Deletes a character to the right or left of the cursor In addition to these basic functions those keys can be modifies by pressing the key and the Control key (Ctrl) at the same time. -Ctrl+Up/Down -- Moves the cursor one paragraph up or down. A paragraph is generated whenever you pres the enter/return key. -Ctrl+Left/Right -- Moves the cursor on word to the left or right. A word is where the spacebar has been pressed or where a special character like a slash is so you can still use it to edit paths (C:\...\) or URLs (http://www. ...). -Ctrl+Home -- Moves the cursor to the beginning of the document -Ctrl+End -- Moves the cursor to the end of the document -Ctrl+Page Up/Down moves the cursor to the first character on the previous or next page -Ctrl+Insert -- Not sure of the function notify me if you know of one -Ctrl+Delete/Backspace -- Deletes a word to the right or left of the cursor. Now that you Know how to move the cursor and do basic editing using the insert select and backspace keys it is time to learn how to select and alter large blocks of text. Hold down the shift key while using any cursor movement command to select the text between the cursor starting and end point. You can use this to select one character or the whole document. To select the whole document you can also press Ctrl+A. Once you have selected text anything you do from there will affect the text. -Pressing Delete or Backspace will clear the selected text -Pressing any key will replace the selected text with that character. -The text can also be moved or have its format changed To you might be used to using copy and paste already but going into a menu to do that is slow when there are universal hotkeys for that. -Ctrl+C -- copies the selected text into the clipboard but leaves the text where it is -Ctrl+X -- Copies the text into the clipboard and deletes it from its current location -Ctrl+V -- Pastes the contents of the clipboard the the location of the cursor or selection. --Note that pictures can be copied and pasted using these same keys. In addition to copy and paste the most common text styles can be toggled with the keyboard. If nothing is selected it will toggle the option for whatever you type to the right of the cursor's location. If text is selected the style will be applied to the selected text. -Ctrl+B -- toggles bold -Ctrl+U -- Toggles underlining -Ctrl+I -- Toggles italics --Note: multiple styles may be used at one time -Ctrl+L -- Aligns the text to the left margin -Ctrl+R -- Aligns text to the right margin -Ctrl+E -- Aligns text to the center of the document -Ctrl+J -- Justifies the text meaning the text will be spread so both margins are straight lines. This is what they do in newspaper and magazine articles -Ctrl+1 -- Single spaces the text meaning each line of text will be directly below the last -Ctrl+2 -- Double Spaces the text so each line will have a blank line between it and the next one -Ctrl+5 -- !.5 spaces the text so each line will have a half line separating it for the next. Of course editing the text is meaningless if you can't save or print it and if you delete the wrong thing it is nice to undo that. -Ctrl+Z -- Undoes the last changes -Ctrl+Y -- Redoes the changes the undo removed as long as you haven't done anything since the last undo command -Ctrl+S -- Saves your work (do this often) and if you have not titled it yet will bong up the Save As screen. -Ctrl+O -- Brings up the open dialogue to edit a previously saved document -Ctrl+N -- Creates a new blank document or window depending on the program -Ctrl+P -- Prints the document. Some programs print directly using default settings some will open the print dialogue for you to change/accept settings. Be aware of how your program acts before wasting paper on an improperly set up page Of course many commands don't have a shortcut or is program specific to where you will only remember them if you use the program for you career that is why menus were created. To us the menus press the Alt key to select the menu bar; some programs such as messengers and web browsers hide the menu bar so it will appear when you press Alt. There are a few ways to navigate the menus When you press the alt key the menus will have a letter underlined; pressing it will open that menu where more letters will be underlined; press that key to either carry out the function or open a sub-menu. The more common functions will have shortcut keys in the menu but others won't so you can use the arrow keys to navigate. --The up and down arrows will move the selection up or down by one item and at the top will open or close the menu. --The right and left keys will open or close a sub-menu or if a function is selected will move one menu to the right or left. --Pressing enter/return will carry out the function or open the menu selected. --Pressing escape (esc) will close one menu until you are back on at the text The is also an unlettered menu that can be accessed by pressing Alt+Space. This is the window control menu and allows you to close, minimize or alter the size and position of the screen. If you select resize or move then an arrow cursor will appear on the window and the arrow keys will affect the window. In addition to shortcut keys and menus the keyboard also has the function keys at the top but these are unstandardized with the only standard key being F1 opening the help file. Of course once in the help file you can read up on what the other keys do. A final note is the tab key. In text editors like word it adds spaces to get to the next tab stop which by default is 8 characters but can also be manually set in some editors. In a dialogue box is till select the next text entry box or button so you can use it to enter a username, press tab then enter the password. In a web browser the tab key will select the next hyperlink where pressing enter will follow the link. Also Alt+Tab will shift windows and Alt+Shift+Tab will change windows in reverse order. Bonus 700 minerals for a great post
It isn't all that much once you realize people in secratorial positions have to remember 5 times a much. You remember it by using it. I used DOS when I was younger so system commands are second nature to me
Clippit is one of those office help assistants. Those little characters that search the office help function for you if you ask them a question. You may also know the assistant a some puzzle pieces, a robot, Einstein, several animals, a globe and more. I don't really like them though, the help function of office sucks anyways...
