Now taking a break from the conventional shortcut keys, let’s look at the very often used Afrikaans characters, so that on the fly we can use a key sequence and keep typing at lightening speed – or at least I should _you_ should be able to continue typing at lightening speed, my two fingers don’t move that fast. We use the “Ctrl” key plus another to get these characters.

The key sequence:

Ctrl + Shift + : and then the character, eg. e

 

The result:

The Afrikaans “deelteken”, in this case – “ë” – or called a “diaresis” in English.

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The key sequence:

Ctrl + Shift + ^ and then the character, eg. e

 

The result:

The Afrikaans “kappie” (sirkumfleks), in this case – “ê” – referred to as a “circumflex” in English

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The key sequence:

Ctrl + ` and then the character, eg e

 

The result:

The Afrikaans “gravis-aksent”, in this case – “è” – in English an “accent grave”

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The key sequence:

Ctrl + ‘ and then the character, eg e

 

The result:

The Afrikaans “akuut-aksent”, in this case – “é” – and in English an “accent aigu”

Remember you can also change the MS Office products to work, spell and report screen messages in Afrikaans as well, have a look at our previous article on MS Word in Afrikaans.

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The key sequence:

Ctrl + V

 

The result:

Whatever information you have gathered with your Ctrl C, Ctrl X and any other means, can now be pasted into the document. If using paste from pull-down menus, there are often types of “paste” – like paste as unformatted text etc – but more on that in a future tip.

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The key sequence:

Ctrl + Z

 

The result:

A quick way to undo the last command or typing – and if you are really undecided, you can use Shift Ctrl + Z to redo the last command.

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The key sequence:

Ctrl + C

 

The result:

Copy the selected text into the clipboard (an area where all of your temporary text/images are stored when copy and pasting). Or in Windows terms – “Copy” the selected area. Very similar to the Ctrl X, but does not remove the text thereafter.

Not exactly Ctrl C, but a form of copying 😉

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The key sequence:

Ctrl + X

 

The result:

Copy the selected text into the clipboard (an area where all of your temporary text/images are stored when copy and pasting) and then remove the selected text all in one process. Or in Windows terms – “Cut” the selected area

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The key sequence:

Ctrl + A

 

The result:

Select everything possible of selecting on the current window. This is a great shortcut when doing a lot of copying from one window to another. A useful shortcut when using Ctrl C or X or V.

 

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The key sequence:

Alt + E

 

The result:

This is used to bring up the Edit menu on the application that is currently active.

This is a good shortcut, but with time, you will replace most of the “Alt E” with direct shortcuts like “Ctrl C” etc.

In Office 2010, you will not get the Edit menu, but it will ask you to either continue with the old key sequence or just abort the key shortcut.

 

A quick tip about Office shortcuts, remember than pressing the Alt key on it’s own brings up the quick key letters on the menu ribbon, so that at a glance you know which letter does what action.

 

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The key sequence:

Alt + F

 

The result:

This is used to bring up your file menu on the application that is currently active.

I use it a lot in applications where they hide the menus away, like Firefox, Media Player etc – a simple “Alt + F” and there she is!