Cut keystrokes with these Windows shortcuts

Imagine typing only about half of what you do now. Keyboard shortcuts may seem like more trouble than they’re worth. But once discovered and practiced, shortcuts can prove to be valuable timesavers. The key is not trying to learn them all.

Try working just a few of these useful keystrokes into your day-to-day routine:

• Cycle through your open applications by holding down Alt while you repeatedly press Tab. Open the control menu in the upper-left corner of the current application window by pressing Alt-Space. Close the current application by pressing Alt-F4. Close the current document by pressing Ctrl-F4.

• Launch Windows Explorer by hitting Windows-E. Then, just press Backspace to move to your current folder’s parent folder. Type F2 to rename the selected folder or file, and F3 to search for a file.

• Minimize all open windows and return to your desktop by hitting Windows-M or Windows-D. Shift-Windows-M reopens all the windows. (Windows-D will restore them, too, if that’s the key combination you used to minimize them.)

• Trim some task time with these shortcuts, which work in many applications:

1. Ctrl-S saves your current work.
2. Ctrl-O opens a new document.
3. Ctrl-Z and Alt-Backspace undo the last thing you did.
4. Ctrl-Y undoes the last undo (or redoes).
5. Ctrl-A selects everything in the open window, whether it’s all the files in a folder or the entire document.
6. Ctrl-X deletes the selection.
7. Ctrl-C copies the selection.
8. Ctrl-V pastes the clipboard contents.
9. Ctrl-F and F3 launch the program’s search or find tool.
10. Ctrl-Home moves the cursor to the beginning of the open file or document.
11. Ctrl-End moves the cursor to the end of the open file or document.