Tech Tip #29--Keyboard Shortcuts
This week's tip is for those of us who like
shortcuts. Here is a list of Keyboard Shortcuts. These are things
you can do by clicking the mouse a few times, or you can do them quickly with
a couple of key strokes. Some of you may not find them useful, if not,
keep on doing it the way you've been doing it!
I've tried to put the ones I use most often at the top of the list.
Windows Program Key Combinations
 | CTRL+A: Select all the items in the current
window
| CTRL+C: Copy
| CTRL+X: Cut
| CTRL+V: Paste
| CTRL+Z: Undo
| CTRL+B: Bold
| CTRL+U: Underline
| CTRL+I: Italic
| CTRL+SHIFT+>:
Makes the font larger
| CTRL+SHIFT+<:
Makes the font smaller
| CTRL+ESC: Open Start menu
| ALT+TAB: Switch between open programs
| ALT+F4: Quit program
| SHIFT+DELETE: Delete item permanently | |
Dialog Box Keyboard Commands
| TAB: Move to the next field
in the dialog box
| SHIFT+TAB: Move to the previous field
in the dialog box
| SPACEBAR: If the current field
is a button, this clicks the button. If the current field
is a check box, this toggles the check box. If the current field
is an option, this selects the option.
| ENTER: Equivalent to clicking the selected
button (the button with the outline)
| ESC: Equivalent to clicking the Cancel button
| ALT+underlined letter in dialog box item: Move
to the corresponding item | |
To Copy a File
| Press and hold down the CTRL key while you drag the file to another folder. |
To Create a Shortcut
| Press and hold down CTRL+SHIFT while you drag a file to the desktop or a folder. |
General Folder/Shortcut Control
| SHIFT+click+Close button: For folders, close the current folder plus all parent folders |
General Keyboard-Only Commands
| F10: Activates menu bar options
| SHIFT+F10 Opens a shortcut menu for the
selected item (this is the same as right-clicking an object)
| ALT+DOWN ARROW: Opens a drop-down list box
| SHIFT: Press and hold down the SHIFT key while
you insert a CD-ROM to bypass the automatic-run feature
| ALT+underlined letter in menu: Opens the menu | |
Tech Tip #30--Easier Ways to Highlight
Do you have problems highlighting a long passage
sometimes where the mouse seems to either get a small part of the passage or
goes too quickly all the way down the page? Here are a few solutions
to make highlighting easier:
| Hold the shift key down and use the arrow keys
to highlight. Or even put your cursor at the beginning, hold shift down and
click at the end of the passage and it will be highlighted.
| Reduce the size of the page you're looking at
to 50% so you see the whole page. (There's a percentage drop down on the
toolbar at the top.) Then highlight.
| Put your cursor at the beginning of where you
want to highlight and then hit the F8 function key at the top of your
keyboard. Then use the arrow keys on the keyboard to highlight the part you
want. | |
Tech Tip #31--Dividing a column in Excel
Have you ever
gotten a spreadsheet from someone where the first and last names were in the
same column and you needed them in separate columns? There is an easy
way to divide these without having to go to each cell and change it.
Here's how:
| Insert a
blank column to the right of the one you are dividing.
| Highlight the
column where the names are in the spreadsheet.
| Select Data
from the menu bar.
| Choose Text
to Columns.
| Make sure
Delimited is selected and click NEXT.
| If the names
are entered with just a space between then check only SPACE; if they are
separated by a comma and a space, then check both COMMA and SPACE.
| Click NEXT.
| Then FINISH. | |
If you have 3
names given on some (i.e. Joe Bob Smith) then you will have some cleaning up
to do, but it's still a lot quicker than doing them all manually.
Here's another way my friend Paula found that she likes better. http://www.cpearson.com/excel/FirstLast.htm
Tech Tip #32--Changing the address book options in email
When you get ready to send an email and you click
on TO, do you see the Global Address List first? If you want to change it, you
can! Here's how:
| Open Outlook
| Select Tools from the menu bar
| Then choose Address Book
| In the new window, choose Tools from the menu
bar
| Then choose Options
| You will then see a new window with Show this
address list first.
| Click on the drop down arrow next to this and
you can choose to set your Contacts as the first thing you see or if you
want just those of us in Fayette County then scroll to find the Recipients
that is located directly under Fayette County. | |
Now give it a test drive. Open a new message and
click the TO button. What do you see?
Tech Tip #33--Making Screen Shots to put in documents
This a great way to include pictures of a screen
(screen shots) in your documents.
| If you are working with multiple windows,
click the one you want to make an image of to make that window active.
| Press ALT+PRINT SCREEN to copy an image of the
current window.
| To paste the image into a document, click the
Edit menu in that document, and then click Paste.
| You can also take a screen shot of your entire
screen by pressing PRINT SCREEN. | |
This tip works in Excel, FrontPage, Outlook,
PowerPoint, Publisher, and Word.
Tech Tip #34--Looping sound throughout a PowerPoint show
This week's tip deals with adding sound to
PowerPoint presentations and having them loop through the entire slide show.
| Open the slide show to the slide to which you
want to add sound.
| Click Insert from the menu bar.
| Choose Movies and Sounds.
| Choose either Sounds from File or Sounds from
Gallery depending on where you saved your sound file or if you are getting
it from the clip gallery.
| When you insert the sound you will get a
message asking if you want to continuously play the sound through the show.
Choose OK.
| Now you will see a little speaker on the
slide. I would move it to the corner where it will be out of the way.
| With the sound still selected, Click on Slide
Show from the menu bar.
| Choose Custom Animation.
| With Media highlighted in the next window, go
to the Multimedia Settings Tab.
| Choose continue slide show and choose stop
playing after 20 or 30 or how many slides you want. I usually set it
much higher than the number of slides I have if so that I can insert slides
and I won't have to change this.
| Then click More Options.
| Check Loop Until Stopped.
| Click OK. | |
Make sure you view your slide show to see that it
actually does play and continues throughout the slide show.
Tech Tip #35--Inserting the current date into Word
When typing a document in Word, you can quickly
insert the current date by pressing ALT + SHIFT + D. Unfortunately, this quick
and easy tip only works for Word and not Outlook, Excel or Publisher.
If you save the
document and open it on a different date, the date will automatically change.
This is great for a form letter that you send often so that you don't have to
remember to change the date every time.
Tech Tip #36 -- Getting your computer ready for the summer
Here's
a list of things that you should do before you leave this school year so that
you will have everything where you need it when you return.
| Open
My Documents on your computer and delete anything that you don't need to
keep.
| Any
files that are in My Documents that you want to save for next year need to
also be saved elsewhere for safety's sake. I usually would save it in
my users folder on the server. (Every teacher should have one of these
at each school, but they are all located in different places. If you
don't have one or don't know where it is, let your STC or me know.)
| Space
on the server may be limited, so if you are saving things in your user
folder, make sure that they are things you really want to keep. If
you've been using your user folder all year, you need to take this time to
clean it out as well and get rid of anything that you don't need.
| Of
course, you can also save things on floppy disks, but remember these can
come out of the box faulty or go bad at any time for no reason, so if it's
really important and you are saving to a floppy you need to save it
somewhere else, too.
| Clean
out your email inbox.
| Also
in email you will need to go through the Sent Items and delete all the old
messages you've sent that you don't need a copy of. (**You can quickly
select adjacent items by clicking on the first item, holding the shift key
down and then clicking on the last item. Or to select non-adjacent
items hold the Ctrl key down while you click on the items you want.
Then you can delete everything that is highlighted at once.)
| Also
check to be sure that your Deleted folder in your email isn't overloaded.
| If
you have lots of email you want to keep, you may need to set up Personal
Folders to store these somewhere other than your inbox. For directions
on how to do that, you can see my tips web pages http://teach.fcps.net/trt10/tips.htm
| I
would also delete temporary files and temporary Internet files (right click
on your IE icon, choose properties, then you should see a button to delete
files).
| Run
scan disk. To do this choose START -> PROGRAMS ->
ACCESSORIES -> SYSTEM TOOLS -> SCAN DISK.
| Run
disk defragmenter. These will just help your computer run more
efficiently when you come back next year. To do this choose START
-> PROGRAMS -> ACCESSORIES -> SYSTEM TOOLS -> DISK
DEFRAGMENTER.
| You
can also back up your computer using about 4 or 5 disks. To do this
choose START -> PROGRAMS -> ACCESSORIES -> SYSTEM TOOLS ->
BACKUP. | |
If
you would like my help in showing you how to do any of this, just let me know.
