I’ve seen it too many times (I used to do it myself). You ask someone to press a shortcut key like ‘Ctrl + C’ for example. They stare at the keyboard for a few seconds to find the right keys, then they pounce on both keys with vigor and might! …only to find out that it didn’t work. What gives? Why are shortcut keys so elusive and hard to use?
Well, it most likely didn’t work, because they pressed the wrong key first — the ‘C’ must have gotten pressed just before the ‘Ctrl’ key. There must be a better way….
There is a better way!
When pressing shortcut keys, you don’t need to hit them both at the same time. No matter what the command is, you can press and hold the keys in sequence. If we take the previous example of ‘Ctrl + C’, you can press and hold the ‘Ctrl’ key THEN press the ‘C’ key. Once you’ve pressed both keys together, the deed is done. At that point, you just release the keys together, and that’s it!
I hope this helps. Here are some useful shortcut keys
Common Shortcut Keys
Windows PC
| Keys | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + C | Copy selected text or images |
| Ctrl + V | Paste what was previously copied or cut |
| Ctrl + X | Cut selected text or images (removes it from the document) |
| Alt + Tab | If multiple open windows, this toggles over to the last window that had focus. You can hold Alt & continue pressing Tab to cycle through all of your windows. Useful to switch between programs quickly. |
| Win + L | Lock your computer |
| Win + R | Opens the Run box where you can type in commands |
| Win + D | Show your Desktop (you can press it again before doing anything else to bring your windows back up) |
| Win + M | Minimize all windows (similar to ‘Win + D’ but doesn’t have the option to bring windows back up |
If you like what you’ve read here, check out other posts on the Blog page — or just drop me a line via the Contact page.
Also, if you know some shortcut keys that I missed, leave them in the Comments below so I can add them to this post.
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