Windows Keyboard Shortcuts

There are a number of Windows Keyboard Shortcuts which can help with your daily computer life. The first thing is to familiarise yourself with some keys.

"Shift key" - In the image it actually says "Shift" but you may have just the arrow. You will usually have 2 of these keys, one on the left and one on the right. The usual use for the "Shift Key" is to type a single capital letter.

"Control Key" - Most keyboards will show this key as just "Ctrl"

"Windows Key" - The "Windows Key" is the one usually between the "Control Key" and the "Alt Key" and has a small picture of the Windows Logo.

"Alt key" - The "Alt Key" is identified by the text "Alt" and can be used, among other things, to open the drop down menus in applications. For example keep your finger on the "Alt" key and press "F", this should open the "File Menu" on your browser.

"Home" (not on image) - Usually has the word "Home on it - I will describe this button as "Home"

"Arrow Keys" (not on image) - these are the four keys with arrows pointing up, down, left and right. I will describe these as "Arrow Up", "Arrow Down" etc.

I will tell you which keys to use by this format: "Ctrl + A" this means keep a finger on the "Ctrl Key" and then press the letter "A", then release both.

The shortcuts I'm going to describe below will relate to handling text like in Word or Emails for example. However these can be used for any text, the best thing is to open a new test document and just have a play.

Ctrl + A - Selects All Text in a document/email

Ctrl + S - Saves the current document, it is good practice to get used to doing this every few minutes with documents, to make sure changes are saved.

Ctrl + C - Copies the selected text to the "Clipboard" (the clipboard is just like memory)

Ctrl + V - Paste from the "Clipboard" to where the cursor is

Ctrl + X - Cuts the selected text to the "Clipboard"

Ctrl + Z - Undo the last change, if you deleted text it will reappear

Shift + "Home" - Selects all text from where the cursor is to the end of the line

Shift + "End" - Selects all the text from where the cursor is to the beginning of the line

Shift + "Arrow Right" - Select the next letter to the right of the cursor etc

Shift + "Arrow Left" - Selects the next letter to the left of the cursor etc

Shift + "Arrow Down" - Selects all the text from the cursor position down to the next line, just under the cursor.

Shift + "Arrow Up" - Selects all the text from the cursor position to the line above the cursor.

There are many more you can use but these are the main one for use with text.

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