alt f4

 

Wanting to close applications or active windows very quickly? These shortcuts will help in speeding up your closing of applications.

 

 

The key sequence:

“Alt” + “F4”

The result:

 

When you have an application open, like MS Word for example – using Alt F4 will close the application and all open windows associated with the application – basically an equivalent to using the “File” “Close” menu.

red square close

 

 

The key sequence:

“Ctrl” + “F4”

The result:

This is similar to the Alt F4, but only closes the active window, so in MS Word if you have 2 documents open, it will only close the current window and leave MS Word running with the other document.

closing-the-window

 


 

The key sequence:

Function key “F3”

The result:

This allows you to launch the search module in most Windows applications – including the desktop area, which will allow you to search

search-red_button


The key sequence:

“Alt” + “Print Screen”

The result:

It “captures” the current active application screen to the clipboard, so that you can then paste it into other applications. Often software vendors want you to record the error you get in their prospective applications and this will capture only the active screen, so that you don’t have to cut and adjust the dimensions to be able to send them the image. You don’t need a graphics program, pasting to MS Word will work just as well.

The below capture is a normal “Print Screen”

full-screen-shot

The below image is using the “Alt” + “Print Screen” to capture just the active application.

alt_print_screen


The key sequence:

“Ctrl” + Alt” + “Del”

The result:

Allow your Windows operating system to close just the application that has frozen and then to open the application again to continue working. Remember this will not save your current document, but will help your computer from corrupting data in the future.

This will bring up the option screen – select “Start Task Manager” from the list and then highlight the bad application, and click on the “End Task” button. You can then close the Task Manager and continue as normal.

Use this after you have tried closing the application in all the correct procedures – like the “File Close”, or the big red “X” in the top right. This way of closing applications is not perfect, but better than switching off your computer to fix hung applications.

ctrlaltdel


The key sequence:

“Alt” + “Tab”

The result:

Jump between the open applications on your Windows computer.

alt_tab_fwd

The key sequence:

“Alt” + “Shift” + “Tab”

The result:

Jump backwards between the open applications on your Windows computer. If the Alt Tab is forwards, this is backwards 😉

alt_tab_rvs

The key sequence:

“Win” + “Tab”

win_key

The result:

Jump between the open applications on your Windows Vista or Windows 7 computer in a 3D view. Very Cool!

vista_3d_tabs


The key sequence:

“Ctrl” + “

The result:

The cursor will jump to the beginning of the next word.

ctrl_right_arrow

The key sequence:

“Ctrl” + “

 

The result:

The cursor will jump to the beginning of the current word.

ctrl_left_arrow


The key sequence:

“Shift” + “End”

The result:

The cursor will jump to the end of the current line and highlight the enter line of text from the current cursor position.

shift_end


The key sequence:

“Shift” + “Home”

The result:

The cursor will jump to the beginning of the current line and highlight the enter line of text from the current cursor position.

shift_home


The key sequence:

The “End” key

The result:

The cursor will jump to the end of the current line.

end-button

The key sequence:

The Ctrl + “End” key

The result:

The cursor will jump to the end of the current document.

ctrl_end


The key sequence:

The “Home” key

The result:

The cursor will jump to the beginning of the current line.

move_cursor_line_begin


The key sequence:

“Ctrl” + “Home” key

The result:

The cursor will jump to the beginning of the current document.

move_cursor_to_top


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.

deelteken


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

afrikaans_kappie


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”

e_with_tilda-gravisteken


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”

accent_e-akuutteken

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.


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.

baby-ctrlcv


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.

ctrlz


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.

victoria_copying_machine

Not exactly Ctrl C, but a form of copying 😉


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

ctrl-keys


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.

ctrl-a


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.

edit

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.

alt_e_in_msword2010

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.


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!

alt_f

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