All PC Tips

Ctrl+Shift+O: To select all the cells with comments. If there are no cells with contents then you will get ‘No cells found’ message.

Ctrl+[ : To show which are the related cells in the selected formula.

Ctrl+] : To show the related formulas of the selected cell.

Shift+Arrow key : The selection will be extended to one more adjacent cell.

Ctrl+Shift+Arrow key : The selection will be extended to the last cell with data either horizontally or vertically based on your current selection.

Shift+Home : The selection will  be extended to the first cell horizontally.

Ctrl+Shift+Home : Selection will be extended to the first cell in the worksheet.

Ctrl+Shift+End: Selection will be extended until the last cell in the worksheet/.

Enter: Cursor will be moved to the next cell below the current cell.

CTRL+B : To make the words bold.
CTRL+I : To italicize the words
CTRL+U: To underline the words
CTRL+DEL: To delete the word on the right of the cursor
CTRL+BACKSPACE:  To delete the word on the left of the cursor 
CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR: To create equal spacing. 
CTRL+C:  To copy the selected text  
CTRL+X:  To cut the selected text 
CTRL+V:  To paste the copied or cut text. 
CTRL+ALT+V:  To paste special  
CTRL+SHIFT+< : To reduce the font size 
CTRL+SHIFT+>: To increase the font size 
CTRL+[ : To reduce the font size
CTRL+]:  To increase the font size 
CTRL+HYPHEN:  To create continuous hiphen 
CTRL+SPACEBAR: To remove paragraph or character formatting 
CTRL+SHIFT+V: To paste the previously used format 
CTRL+Z : To undo the last action 
CTRL+Y:  To redo the last action that was undone. 
CTRL+SHIFT+G: To bring the word count dialog box. 
CTRL+L:  To align text to the left 
CTRL+E:  To centralize the text 
CTRL+R: To alogin the text to the right of the screen. 
CTRL+M:  To make the paragraph or the selected text in the margin.
CTRL+1:  To make the spacing between lines as 1 
CTRL+5:  To make the spacing between lines as 1.5 
CTRL+2:  To make the spacing between lines as double 
F7: :  To check spelling and grammer 
SHIFT+F7 : : To show thesaurus options 
CTRL+SPACE : To enable/disable auto correct 
CTRL+SHIFT+8:  To show/hide hidden characters.

Mouse is no doubt one of the best accessories used with the computer. However there are some who would like to work with Shortcut keys and minimize the use of the mouse. Windows and Windows based applications have these shortcut keys for various operations.

Hotkeyz is an application that allows you to create short cut keys to start these applications, to initiate control panel entries or even to reboot the system. You can download this free program from http://www.skynergy.com/hotkeyz.html. Using this program you can do things like, closing open programs, minimizing or maximizing active windows, to restart or shutdown, to mute or unmute the speakers, to open web browser with a particular website and many more. You can choose and assign your own shortcut keys for these.

CTRL+SPACEBAR : The active column will be selected.
SHIFT+SPACEBAR : The active row will be selected.
CTRL+HOME :To goto the start of the worksheet
CTRL+END:  To goto the end of the worksheet
SHIFT+F3 : To add a function in the formula
CTRL+A: When entering a formula, after typing the function name the formula pallette will be shown.
CTRL+A: When a formula is not entered or edited, the whole sheet will be selected.
CTRL+‘ : (Single left quotation mark) Cell valye and cell formula will be shown next to each other
F11 or ALT+F1: The chart will be produced based on the selected range.
CTRL+;  (semi colon) to insert the date
CTRL+:  (colon) To insert time
CTRL+ENTER: to create entry in the selected range
F5: to show the "Go To" dialog box
CTRL+1: to show the "Format Cells" dialogn box
CTRL+C: to copy
CTRL+V: to paste
CTRL+Z:  to undo
CTRL+S: to save
CTRL+P: to print
CTRL+O: to open a new file

Here are some useful shortcut keys for Windows 7 users.

Windows key + Up Arrow = Active window will be maximized

Windows key + Down Arrow = Active window will be minimized

Windows key + Left Arrow = Active window will be moved to the left

Windows key + Right Arrow = Active window will be moved to the right

Windows key + Home Key = All windows will be minimized. If already minimized they will be opened.

Windows key + T = The first application in task bar will be given focus. If you press T continuously the focus will be switched to other applications in that order.

Windows key + Space bar = If you keep pressed, Windows Startup will be shown.

Windows key +  1-9 any number key = The respective application in the task bar will be given focus.

Windows key +  Plus key = Window will be zoomed in

Windows key + Minus key = Window will be zoomed out.

In Google’s Gmail website there are many short cut keys. But it is difficult to remember all these short cut keys. To solve this issue a new keyboard is now commercially available. This keyboard costs 19.99 USD.

There are 19 keys in this keyboard and looks like a number keypad. Each key represents a shortcut key. For example to mark a message with a star (favourites), or to initiate a search, to go inside the message threads etc can be achieved by just a click of a button. This keyboard can be connected to your laptop or PC via USB ports. There is no drivers required for this keyboard. You can just connect and start using it. But before you start using it, you will have to goto your Gmail account and enable the ‘Short cut keys’ in your settings.

This keyboard was not designed by Google. A film producer, Charlie Mason created this keyboard. If you already use shortcut keys in Gmail this could be a thing to consider. If you have not started using Gmail shortcut keys then this is the right time to try.

In Windows, when you right click on any object, you will see a context sensitive shortcut menu. When you select any file or directory in Windows Explorer and right click, you will see ‘Send To‘ option. Most of us do not use this option effectively. In this article let us see how we can use this “Send To” feature effectively in Windows.

By default, the ‘Send To’ will have a ‘Floppy drive’, ‘Mail recipient’, ‘Fax recipient’ etc. But what if you want to add another drive (for example, your thumb drive) in addition to floppy drive so that you can send any file or folder directly to your thumb drive.

Let us assume that your thumb drive is assigned letter H: and you want to add this drive H to your ‘Send To’ menu. Here are the steps to achieve this.

1. Right click on ‘Start’ and select ‘Explore’.
2. Now scroll down to the ‘Windows/Send To’ folder in your Windows Explorer. If you are using Windows XP then you will have to set your ‘Folder options’ to ‘Show hidden files and folders’. To enable this click on ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Folder’. Then click on the ‘View’ tab and select the ‘Show hidden files and folders’ and click ‘OK’. Choose the ‘Documents and settings\username’ folder. Note that this username is your name.
3. Now in this ‘Send To’ menu you can delete unwanted shortcuts. Here you can add any other shortcut you want to add. You can do so by dragging the shortcut icon and dropping it here. For example you want to add ‘Notepad’ application here. Then you can just create a shortcut to Notepad here or search for the ‘notepad.exe’ file and drag and drop a shortcut here. After you create this shortcut you can select any text file later and right click and select this notepad to open that file in notepad automatically.

You can also add a folder to this ‘Send To’ menu. To add a folder to the shortcut menu follow these steps.

1. Right click ‘Start’ and select ‘Explore’
2. Goto ‘Windows\Send to\ folder. If you are using Windows XP then follow the steps given above to goto the send to folder in XP.
3. Now in your windows explorer, right click the thumb drive (eg. H:\Removable disk) and drag and drop it to the ‘Send To’ folder.
4. You will see a new menu with many options. Choose the ‘Create shortcut’ option to create a shortcut to this drive. From now on you can right click on any file and directly send to your thumb drive.