Easy URL Entry-Your New Favorite Shortcuts
How many times a day do you click into the Internet Explorer (IE) address bar and then type WWW [dot] SOMETHING [dot] COM? Try these great shortcuts together to speed up just about every entry into your browser address bar:
- Go to the Address bar: [Alt] + D
- To automatically add www. before, and .com after, what you're typing in the Address bar and go to that site: [Ctrl] + [Enter]
For instance, to the Microsoft website, press [Alt] + D, then type microsoft, and then press [Ctrl] + [Enter].
See how many clicks and keystrokes you can save with these two combinations.
Stop and Refresh
To save time loading and updating web pages:
- To stop downloading a web page: [Esc]
- To refresh the current web page: [F5] or [Ctrl] + R
Change Your Browser Window
Customize the view of your IE browser window with these tricks:
- To show or hide the History bar: [Ctrl] + H
- To show or hide the Favorites bar: [Ctrl] + I
- To toggle full-screen mode on or off: [F11]
Find in a Web Page
Save time finding a word or phrase on a web page with a quick
find. This shortcut is especially handy when you get to a page
via a search engine but the search term you are looking for is not quickly found.
- To open the Find dialog box: [Ctrl] + F
--Microsoft Power Point Tips and Tricks--
'Microsoft PowerPoint: Designing Presentations'
Display the Ruler
Choose View > Ruler; repeat again to hide. The rulers are marked off in inches and appear to the left and at the top of your slide working area. When you move the pointer or a drawing tool, look for the moving lines on the rulers that show you precisely where you are on the slide.
How Easy Are Your Slides to Read?
Too many presentations are so packed with information they can be illegible. Even complex and confusing slides may be readable if viewed only 18 inches away from a computer monitor.
Try this simple test. Switch to View > Slide Sorter and then choose a 66% view from View > Zoom or the Zoom toolbar button. If you cannot read the slide without a magnifying glass, consider using a larger font, fewer words and/or higher contrast.
'Microsoft PowerPoint: Working with Shapes'
Creating the Perfect Circle, Square, Star, and More
If you have even tried to draw a circle or square on a slide, you might have noticed that the tool is actually called ellipse or rectangle which does not automatically give you a perfectly
proportional shape.
The next time that you want an evenly proportioned shape, select the toolbar or AutoShape option that you want, press and hold down [Shift] and then draw the object. Release the mouse before letting go of the [Shift] key and you will have a perfect circle (or square). Hold [Shift] again if you need to resize the shape.
This trick can also be used for drawing other shapes including stars, octagons, triangles, and more.
Quickly Copy a Shape
Do you want more copies of your perfect shape? Here's an easy way to make a copy:
1) Click once on the shape to select, 2) Press and hold down [Ctrl] and drag the object to create a copy in a new location.
Easy Alignment:
If you want the original and the copy to be evenly aligned either horizontally or vertically, follow the steps above but also add the [Shift] key which will "constrain" or limit your movement to be only across or up and down.
Limit Your Lines
Most shapes will look more professional onscreen without an outside line or border. To remove the line: 1) Select the object, 2) Click on the drop-down arrow next to the Paintbrush tool in the Drawing toolbar (at the bottom of the screen) or double-click on the object to change the Line to No Line.
Selecting Multiple Objects
To select or highlight more than one object, press and hold down the [Shift] key and click on each object. Click again if you want to de-select an object. All highlighted objects can then be moved, copied, formatted and modified together. Click away from the selected items to un-select them all.
Selecting "Hidden" Objects
With more complex slides, a shape, text box, or other object that you want to work with may be hidden or tucked behind other objects making it difficult to click and select the correct
one. To select slide objects in sequence, press [Tab] repeatedly. Each object, including titles and subtitles, will be individually highlighted each time you press [Tab]. Stop on the one you want to work with. Go backwards by pressing [Shift] + [Tab].
Next, format, delete, copy, move, or re-size the selected object.
'Microsoft PowerPoint: Delivering Presentations'
Keyboard Shortcuts for Delivering a PowerPoint Slide Show
Quick Start of Slide Show
Start from first slide: Press [F5] to start a slide show of the current presentation starting from the first slide (regardless of location).
Start from current slide: Press [Shift] + [F5] to start a slide show from the current slide (PowerPoint 2003 and newer) or click once on the projector toolbar in the bottom left corner to start a slide show from the current selected slide.
Press [Esc] to exit at any time.
Navigating Slides
Advance to the next slide (any of these): [Right], [Down], N (for Next), [Spacebar], [Page Down] (or click the left mouse)
Return to the previous slide (any of these): [Left], [Up], P (for Previous), [Backspace], [Page Up]
Go to specific slide number: type slide number and press [Enter]
Black Screen
Display a black screen or go back to slide show: B or [Period]
Changing Pointer
Hide the mouse pointer: [Ctrl] + H
Activate the mouse pointer/arrow: [Ctrl] + A
Quick Help
While running a slide show, press the [F1] function key for a list of slide show shortcuts. A great way to learn shortcuts but definitely not recommended while delivering a presentation.
Right-click anywhere on the slide show screen for a shortcut menu with many slide show actions.
--Microsoft Word Tips and Tricks--
Microsoft Word: Editing
Quick Case Change
Do you want to change the case of text that is all upper case or lower case without re-typing?
First, select text and then press [Shift] + [F3] and repeat until the text looks the way you want. Choices include: UPPER CASE, lower case, Sentence case.
For more options, select text and pick Format > Change Case.
Don't Break Me Up (Text):
Non-Breaking Spaces & Non-Breaking Hyphens
Most of the time, we want text in a Microsoft Word document to automatically wrap text, that is, to move to the next line when it is too long. Word wrap is great except when it breaks up text that we want to stay together such as dates, names, phone numbers, phrases, formulas, titles or other text that should stay together.
Some examples of text you might want to keep together:
August 2, 2005
Christopher A. Jones, Ph.D.
(555) 123-4567
state-of-the-art
The common solution: what most people do to keep text together is move to the beginning of the text and press [Enter]. This is fine until any of the text changes and causes breaks in the wrong place.
The right solution: add non-breaking spaces or non-breaking hyphens instead of normal spaces and hyphens:
Non-breaking space: [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Spacebar]
Non-breaking hyphen: [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Hyphen]
As the name implies, non-breaking characters connect the text together and it will all automatically move to the next line together but only as needed.
Don't Break Me Up (Paragraphs)
Ready for a little more advanced way to keep text together? When automatic page breaks are splitting up paragraphs of text in the wrong place, highlight the text and choose:
Format > Paragraph, pick the Line and Page Breaks tab,
check one of these options, and OK to apply:
Keep Lines Together
(prevents a page break within a paragraph)
Keep With Next
(prevents a page break between the selected
paragraph and the following paragraph)
Quick Random Text
Would you like to easily create practice test to try out Microsoft Word techniques? Stop typing and just enter:
=rand(# of paragraphs, # of sentences/paragraph)
For instance, =rand(10,5) will create the practice text "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" in 10 paragraphs of 5 sentences each.
'Microsoft Word: Navigation'
Go Back to Last Location
Press [Shift] + [F5] to go back to each of your last 5 locations in a Word document. Open an existing document and press [Shift] + [F5] to move to the last location you were working on.
'Microsoft Word: Printing'
Reverse the Print Order
Some printers output pages so that page 1 lands face up on the bottom of the stack. To avoid having to manually reorder the pages to put them in the proper page sequence and to save time, reverse the print order in Microsoft Word. To have the document pages print in reverse order so that page 1 is on the top hot off the presses:
Select Tools > Options.
Choose the Print tab from the Options dialog box.
Click to pick the check mark for the option Reverse Print Order. (This change affects all print jobs not just the current document).
Pick OK to apply.
'Microsoft Word: Formatting'
Keyboard Shortcuts for Changing Font Size
To change the font size of selected text, try these keyboard
shortcuts:
To increase or decrease font size incrementally according to
the sizes listed in the font size drop-down list:
Increase: [Ctrl] + [Shift] + >
Decrease: [Ctrl] + [Shift] + <
To increase or decrease font size one point at a time:
Increase: [Ctrl] + ]
Decrease: [Ctrl] + [
Change Default Text Wrapping
You've got a great picture to illustrate your text, and you know exactly where you want it to be positioned. Once you insert the picture, however, it can not be easily moved until you change how text wraps around the graphic.
It's likely that the default text wrapping option, In Line With Text, is not the best option if you want specific control over the position of graphics in your Microsoft Word documents. To modify your preferences:
- Tools > Options.
- Click on the Edit tab.
- For the option, Insert/paste pictures as choose your preferred text wrapping style and then select OK to set your new defaults.
More about text wrapping options.
'Microsoft Word: File Management'
Opening a File
With a variety of choices, how do you open a file? Here are the standards plus several keyboard shortcuts:
File > Open
Open toolbar button (usually 2nd from the left on the Standard toolbar)
[Ctrl] + O
[Ctrl] + F12
[Ctrl] + [Alt] + F2
Selecting Multiple Files to Open
Once you are in the Open dialog box, select more than one file
to open:
To select nonadjacent files in the Open dialog box, click one file, and then hold down [Ctrl] and click each additional file.
To select adjacent files in the Open dialog box, click the
first file in the sequence, and then hold down [Shift] and click the last file.To unselect a highlighted file you don't want, hold down [Ctrl] and click the file again.
File Management Tips
How-To Article: 5 Easy File Management Tips
'Microsoft Word: Customizing'
Microsoft Word Function Keys
If you like keyboard shortcuts, then check out Word's collection of more than 50 function key combinations. It's easy to print out or display the available function keys. To display each of the function keys, choose Tools > Customize and then click the Toolbars tab. Select the Function Key Display option and then click Close. Word displays the Function Key Display toolbar (below). (This toolbar can be docked at screen edges or floated onscreen). Each function key is defined; press the [Shift], [Ctrl], [Alt] keys individually and in combination. Execute the commands by pressing the key combinations or by clicking on the displayed toolbar button.
You can obtain a complete list of function key assignments by searching for function keys in Microsoft Word help.
