Triple Play – Three tips for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7

By | October 17, 2011
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Tip #1 – F4 Power Plays

Did you know that the F4 key has many uses? It does and here are a few:

Click F4 while your browser is open and the last 25 addresses you have typed out in your address bar will show Place your cursor in the address bar and hit the F4 key. Now, use your up/down arrow key to scroll to the one you want to go to. Yes, clicking the little arrow to the right of the address bar does the same thing, but sometimes it is nice not to have to leave your keyboard and use your mouse.

Want to close those nasty little popup windows that don’t have any obvious way to close them (or to avoid getting tricked into clicking “Close” and downloading Spyware or adware) tap the ALT key + the F4 key to close the window in focus (the one “on top”).

Want to close a program window that is open on your computer without using your mouse? If the program is open, in use, and in focus (the window on top of all others) you can close it by tapping the ALT and F4 keys (this will instantly minimize the program window).

Tip #2 – Add your Favorite Help resources to your Favorites

Digiknow that when you find a section of Windows Help that you may want to refer to again later, you can click “Add to Favorites” and you’ll be able to return to it quickly in the future. The next time you need to refer to it, just open Windows Help again, and click the Favorites icon at the top of the window.

Tip #3 – Text Tricks

Select a single letter, word, paragraph, or an entire page with this trick.

The shortcut for selecting all the text and graphics in a Windows document is Ctrl + A. But you already knew that, didn’t you? You could be more selective with your selection in Microsoft Word.

Tap your F8 key the first time to turn on this feature then move your cursor right or left to select a single character. Now, press F8 a second time to select the entire word. Three taps on F8 selects the sentence. Four F8 punches knocks out the paragraph. If you want the whole document, hit F8 five times.

Reverse the process by keeping the Shift key depressed while tapping F8. When you’re done selecting text, just press the ESC key to turn this feature off.

And another text trick – if you want to select an entire paragraph, position your cursor roughly in the middle of the paragraph and triple-click. Didn’t know that one, did you?

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