46 Keyboard Shortcuts that Actually Save you Time

By Nicole Tinkham

Do you have loads of extra time on your hands and don’t know what to do with it all? We didn’t think so. How do you feel about using keyboard shortcuts to save a little time? Your first thoughts may be #1: It doesn’t really save much time and #2: It’s too hard to memorize various shortcuts. First of all, using shortcuts DOES save time if you sit at a computer all day long. It may only be a few seconds but those seconds add up to create minutes and minutes into hours. Below you’ll find a lengthy list of shortcuts but they won’t all apply to you. For example, if you spend your day browsing the web, you’ll find the “browser” section most helpful. If you work in Word all day, check out the text editing shortcuts. There’s absolutely no need to memorize all of them. Pick and choose the ones that will help you out the MOST and start there. Once you become familiar with those few, add on more!

The Basics

Ctrl + X: Cut the selection and store it on the clipboard
Ctrl + C: Copy selection onto keyboard
Ctrl + V: Paste copied selection at cursor
Ctrl + Z: Undo the last thing you did
Ctrl + Y: Redo the last thing you did
Ctrl + A: Select all (in focused control or window)
Ctrl + P: Print
Shift + Delete: Delete an item permanently without putting it in the recycle bin

Navigation

Windows + D: Displays the desktop
Windows + M: Minimizes all windows
Windows button: View application menu
Ctrl + Shift + Esc: View task manager
Alt + Tab: Switch between windows

Power

Shift + Tab + Tab + Space: Shut down computer

Screenshots

Print Screen button: Copies the entire screen
Alt + Print Screen: Copies just the current window

Text Editing

Ctrl + Del: Deletes the whole word to the right of the cursor
Ctrl + Backspace: Deletes the whole word to the left of the cursor
Home button: Goes to the start of the line
End button: Goes to the end of the line
Ctrl + Home: Goes to the start of the document
Ctrl + End: Goes to the end of the document
Ctrl + <–: Goes to the previous word
Ctrl + –>: Goes to the next word
Ctrl + F: Use the Find function
Ctrl + B: Turns on Bold
Ctrl + I: Turns on Italic
Ctrl + U: Turns on Underline
Crtl + Shift + L: Makes selected text bulleted
Shift + Enter: Insert line break
Ctrl + K: Insert hyperlink

Browser

Alt + D: Go to address bar
Alt + <–: Go to previous location in history
Alt + –>: Go to next location in history
Alt + Home: Go to starting page (defined by user)
Ctrl + B: Show bookmarks
Ctrl + D: Add current page to bookmarks
F5: Refresh page
Ctrl + N: New browser window
Ctrl + T: New tab
Ctrl + W: Close tab
Ctrl + Tab: Go to next tab
Ctrl + Shift + Tab: Go to previous tab
Ctrl + (+): Zoom in
Ctrl + (-): Zoom out
F11: Full screen

The final question is what will YOU use your extra time for? You can send out a few emails. Take an extra minute to stretch out. Grab a cup of coffee. Seriously, tell us what you would do with a few extra minutes in your day. Comment below or connect with us on Facebook!