I already shared a few weeks ago a short list of shortcuts that are useful in getting the most out of Windows. Before I share more, let me list some of the reasons I am a proponent of keyboard shortcuts:

1. It’s quicker.

That’s all.

Quite simply, you can work quicker as you learn and remember more and more keyboard shortcuts and as you work to make them a part of how you work. Think about this, how long would it take you to minimize every window you had open right now? I have 7 windows open right now, for me to go and hit the “minimize” bar on the top of each window would take about 6 seconds total, for me to hit the Windows key and the letter D together (Win+D) takes about 1/2 a second - tops. (I know that Macs have a Mouse Shortcut for this, which works very well indeed.)

Most people already know some keyboard shortcuts and they don’t even realize it, for example Ctrl+C for Copy, Ctrl+V for Paste, Ctrl+X for Cut, Ctrl+P for Print and Ctrl+S for Save. I’ve even mentioned F1 for the Help menu a couple of times.

Take a few minutes and peruse your menus in the programs that you have open. For example, under the File menu you’ll find options that look like the image to the left. Here you can see that Ctrl+T opens a new tab while Ctrl+W closes a tab.

One shortcut that is common to just about every Windows program is Alt+F4 which closes the program down. It works the same as hitting the button at the top right of the window.

Also, to switch programs you can hold down Alt and hit Tab (Alt+Tab) to file through the windows you have open rather than clicking the items on your taskbar. Ctrl+Tab works within a single program - say to switch between documents you have open in Word or tabs in Firefox.

I’ve found a number of lists of shortcuts that I want to list here. Check some of them out and take advantage as you gain more of your time to work (and a better control over your computer use).

• Common Windows Shortcuts
• Mac OS X Shortcuts
• 230+ Keyboard Shortcuts for Top Web Services
• Gmail Shortcuts - there is an option in Gmail to turn these on and off.
• Microsoft Word Shortcuts
• Microsoft Excel Shortcuts
• Microsoft Powerpoint Shortcuts

Links via [Lifehacker & Mashable]

Popularity: 99% [?]

Backward/Forward Compatibility

For anyone who uses Microsoft Office regularly to share information with other staff or students (both on PCs and Macs) you may have started to notice difficulties since Office 2007 came out. With the new Office release comes new standard file formats that are not backwards-compatible with older versions.

In Word .doc has become .docx, in Excel .xls has become .xlsx, etc., and this has caused quite a few difficulties. In reality these changes are a step forward for Microsoft as these document formats are becoming the standard for these types of documents and are readable by more programs that are not specific to Microsoft.

Fellow staff Kendall passed on a message from Todd Johnson to make me aware of a patch that is available for those of you who have older versions of Office so that you can open, read and edit these newer formats. I poked around on the Microsoft site a bit and came across it here (unfortunately the problem is for both Macs and PCs, but the solution is Windows only):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466

Follow the instructions on the page to get it for yourself, make sure you read the system requirements (basically if you have an older version of MS Office or even just PowerPoint viewer it will work).

Note to Mac Users: I did look for a similar update for the Mac versions of MS Office, I couldn’t find anything. If any of you know where this would be comment below and I will make sure I update you all on it.

Saving as a PDF from Office 2007

If you’re one of the up-to-date few that already have Office 2007 running on your machine there is now another (and better) option for getting your files into PDF format. Dave commented on the last PDF post and shared the link there. It is also an update from Microsoft itself:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4d951911-3e7e-4ae6-b059-a2e79ed87041

This update is only for Microsoft Office 2007, it will not work with older versions or with other programs. If you still want to be able to “print to PDF” from other programs besides MS Office (or if you are running and older version) head back to the post on PDF-ing your documents and download CutePDF from there.

Popularity: 52% [?]