How many times a day do you go to your computer’s menu bar to copy, paste, open a file, print a document, make text bold, and so on?
It’s a short journey for your mouse pointer, but when you multiply that by the several hundred times you do it, these commands take up a significant amount of time. Especially when you consider that many of them have shortcuts you can take with just a few taps of your fingers.
Combine Command or Ctrl With Another Key
All keyboard shortcuts start with a combination of two or more keys. Just remember that there’s a difference between Mac and PC shortcuts, and that’s the name of the base key used to trigger the shortcut.
For shortcuts, obviously I use Cmd + F a lot to find things. But I also use custom shortcuts to crop windows, so I can see multiple windows at once. I also frequently use Spotlight search on Mac (Cmd + space) to find things. - Lawrence, training manager
My favorite keyboard shortcut is a classic: Cmd + C/Cmd + V! But there's a lesser known one that I use a lot to move between tabs in Chrome: Cmd + Alt + Arrow (left or right). - Nick, engineering manager
Learn the Basics and Above All, Practice!
Although we’ll be sharing all the most useful shortcuts in this course, if you’re new to shortcuts, here are the most important ones.
| PC | Mac |
|
Double-click | / | / | Double-click a word to select it. |
Triple-click | / | / | Triple-click a word to select the entire paragraph in which the word appears. |
Select all | ctrl+a | cmd+a | It selects all! |
Copy | ctrl+c | cmd+c | This shortcut copies the selection. |
Paste | ctrl+v | cmd+v | This pastes the selection. |
Quickly switch applications | alt+Tab | cmd+Tab | Press once to move to the last application you used, or hold down ctrl/cmd and press Tab again to switch between your open applications. |
Save | ctrl+s | cmd+s | Saves your progress in the application you currently have open. |
Refresh your browser | ctrl+r | cmd+r | Refreshes the web page you’re currently on. This one’s especially handy for developers! |
Make text bold | ctrl+b | cmd+b | In a word processor, this makes the selected text bold. |
Make text italic | ctrl+i | cmd+i | Makes the selected text italic. |
Underline text | ctrl+u | cmd+u | Underlines the selected text. |
Undo | ctrl+z | cmd+z | Use this shortcut to undo your last action. This is a very popular one! |
Redo | ctrl+y | cmd+y | This lesser-known shortcut restores the last action you undid. |
Quit | ctrl+q | cmd+q | This quits the application you have open. |
Open | ctrl+o | cmd+o | This is used to open a selection, usually a folder or file. |
New | ctrl+n | cmd+n | Depending on the application you’re using, you can use this to open a new document/browser window/etc. |
ctrl+p | cmd+p | Print the current page with two keystrokes! | |
Find on page | ctrl+f | cmd+f | Find a word or phrase in the page or document you’re currently using with this shortcut. |
Select multiple items | ctrl+left click | cmd+click | You can select multiple items at the same time by holding down the command key and clicking on each item you want to select. |
Let’s Recap!
Shortcuts save tiny amounts of time, but when added up throughout the day, they can end up saving you a lot of time.
Double-click to select a word and triple-click to select a whole paragraph.
We all started with Copy/Paste… try it and see how much time you can save every day!
A Final Word!
Bravo! You should be proud of yourself! Just one last quiz to make sure you’ve fully absorbed the information in this last section, and you’re done with the course!
My final advice to you: remember, only with regular practice will all these tools become second nature. Practice on your own and come back to see me if you ever feel that bad stress starting to take hold. 😀 I’m confident that now that you know how to scale up, break down, plan, automate, and prioritize your work, Murphy’s Law won’t mess with you that much... 😈
I wish you lots of success in your future projects!
