This week I was in a training for a specific online tool and the trainer shared that we could zoom out to see the box we needed to click by pressing the control and minus key. I was so excited about this keyboard shortcut, I showed at least 5 people that same day when I returned to my campus! Why? I love any ANYTHING that will save me time and help me to be more efficient and the right keyboard shortcuts can do JUST THAT!

Read about some of my favorites below or scroll down to see my Keyboard Shortcuts Infographic. Be aware that I’ve used the shortcuts for Windows and Chromebook devices. For Mac users, replace the Ctrl key with Cmd 🙂

Some of my absolute FAVORITE and MOST-USED keyboard shortcuts are:

You can bring back an accidentally closed tab in chrome!

That’s right! No more crying out in anguish the next time you accidentally close that beloved tab you’d been holding on to all day. Simply press Ctrl + shift + T (think T for Tab) and you’ve got your last closed tab RIGHT BACK!

This is also a great trick for when a student quickly closes down several tabs when you walk by. Just press ctrl + shift +T a few times and bring back the last few tabs they closed! 😉

Copy and Paste Shortcuts

Hopefully, you are already familiar with some of the most common keyboard shortcuts such as Ctrl + C to copy something, Ctrl + X to cut, and Ctrl + V to paste (if not – try them out! It is so much faster to use the keyboard strokes than to right click, scroll down to copy, click where you want, right click, and scroll down to paste). Here’s a lesser known shortcut that I use ALL THE TIME to save me time: Ctrl + Shift + V to paste and match your formatting (no more ugly random font from a website that doesn’t match what you’ve already set up!) 

 

Image Manipulation 

I love to use the arrow keys to move objects around in documents, but sometimes I can’t get things lined up exactly right. Shift key to the rescue! If you hold down Shift + left or right arrow keys you will move objects one pixel at a time to get things EXACTLY where you want them!

 

Font Size

Need the font to be just a little bigger? So you highlight the text, go up to the drop down for font size and try the next size. That one’s not right, so you mouse back to the top to try another… and so on… and so on… am I right? Try using Ctrl + > to increase font size one point at a time or Ctrl + < to decrease font size one point at a time and get your font EXACTLY the right size without mousing up and down your screen or guessing the right font size number.

 

Link Shortcuts

I love using Ctrl + L to highlight the link of a webpage I’m on without having to touch my mouse. I also love to highlight a word or phrase in a document I’m creating and use Ctrl + K to make that text a link to a webpage.

I often use a shortcut chain of:

• Ctrl+ L (to highlight a website link)
• Ctrl+ C (to copy the link)
• Switch over to a document and highlight a word I want linked to that site
• Ctrl+ K (to pop open the window to add a link)
• Ctrl+ V (to paste the website link I copied)

WOAH! That’s a lot of shortcuts in row, but once you learn them, you can grab and paste a link in seconds and save valuable time!

 

Find what you’re looking for FAST

If you aren’t using Ctrl + F every day, start now! It will save you SO MUCH TIME. Whether you are trying to search a super long document for a particular section, or you’re just trying to narrow down a google search, use Ctrl + F to FIND the word you are looking for in any document or webpage! This is a HUGE time saver!!!

Check out the infographic below for all of my favorite time-saving keyboard shortcuts:

 

One Shortcut to Rule Them All:

That last one is MAJOR! You can press Ctrl + ? to bring up a categorized menu of keyboard shortcuts whenever you are working in any of the G-suite apps.

So go and try out my favorite keyboard shortcuts and find your own, too!