We often find ourselves switching our hands between our mouse or a trackpad and our keyboard. This becomes quite cumbersome to handle if you are a programmer like me or if you spend most of your time on the machine. What if I shared some (a word or sound that is believed to have a special spiritual power) with you which could transform you into a . Yeah, you would definitely need some practice but eventually, you would become great at it. secret magic mantras Keyboard Shortcut Wizard Shortcuts were made for us to save our time and do tasks quicker than using our mouse or a trackpad. Now looking at the keyboard don’t you get curious about the random letters been placed all over your keyboard? Why are letters randomly placed on the keyboard? Let me tell you that the letters weren’t placed randomly or just for fun, it had a very distinct and purposeful reason behind it. Before the 1870s, typewriters used to follow the lexicographic order on their keyboards. The problem arose when people started striking letters too fast which led the bars of the typewriters to get entangled and get jammed. To resolve this, Christopher Sholes developed a QWERTY keyboard layout in 1873. It placed keys in such a manner that the bars were less likely to collide with each other when typing. This keyboard layout then became a standard with the popularity of the Remington typewriter which was the first to use it, and all other manufacturers fell in line. Why do we still use it? You might think why are we still using the same old QWERTY layout keyboard even after 140 years which was designed to fix a problem that no longer exists? After hundreds of trials and errors, Christopher Sholes developed the which was well received by the community. The QWERTY layout solved many other problems too. After observing thousands of words, Christopher Sholes formulated that to speed up the typing process, there has to be a regular alternation between the two hands. So he placed the characters in such a way that most words would make use of both hands. QWERTY keyboard layout Now and it’s close to impossible to switch back to the old lexicographic layout as it would require us to replace all our QWERTY keyboards and we would have to learn to type on the new layout again. And as we all know people resist change which is the mere reason of QWERTY layout being stuck around until now. QWERTY is a widely used layout Most Productive Keyboard Shortcuts All the shortcuts mentioned here are focussed on Windows Operating system so sorry Mac and Linux users for leaving you off here. Although the Mac key ( ⌘ ) is generally the same as the Windows key and Windows key could be either Mac or Mac key. Cmd Ctrl Alt Cmd Opt We won’t be discussing some of the basic shortcuts which we are already used to, like cut, copy, paste, undo and redo. I have tried to cover only those shortcuts which are lesser-known or the newest ones which will help you boost your productivity at work. We have covered shortcuts for the following programs: Windows Word / Google Docs Chrome / Firefox / Opera / Microsoft Edge Are you ready to become a ? If you stay until the end of this article then I have some to boost your productivity. Keyboard Shortcut Wizard bonus tools Clipboard History This shortcut will only work for the versions after the Windows October update. Note: The clipboard history saves multiple copied text and images which can be pasted in any order without recopying the texts and images over and over again. This feature caught my attention as soon as it got released in Windows October Update and since then I never had to look for any third-party software to do the task as this new feature works flawlessly. Right Click Our next shortcut is a right click fired-off from a mouse onto our keyboard with a target of shift + F10. This shortcut just right clicks on the focussed area so if you want to right click on a specific file then you first need to set the focus on that file and press and it will show up the options for the selected file. shift + F10 Lock your Desktop We often have to leave our workspace idle for some time with all our processes running in the background. It’s a dumb idea to not lock your machine while you’re away from it, so here’s a handy shortcut for you to lock your desktop using Win + L. Open Task Manager A program isn’t responding! No worries, comes to the rescue followed by opening the Task Manager and killing the task. But there’s a better way to do it and that is which opens up the Task Manager directly and we can then end the selected task using the key. Ctrl + Alt + Del Ctrl + Shift + Esc Del System Basic Information It’s always wise to know some basic information about your system, so instead of going to the properties of ‘This PC’ (formerly known as ‘My Computer’). You can simply view the system information using Win + Pause. Take a Quick Screenshot You can take a quick screenshot of the current screen on Windows using and your screenshot will be available in . Win + prt sc Pictures/Screenshots To capture a screenshot of a desired area use and simply drag left click and drag around the area you want to copy. You can now paste that anywhere you want with the classic Win + Shift + S Ctrl + V. Taskbar Selections We pin items on the Taskbar so that we can quickly open them up whenever required but are you still opening them up using a mouse? Well, you can open your pinned items using where a number (1–0) is the position of an item from the left on the Taskbar. Suppose if chrome is the third item from the taskbar then you’ll use to open up chrome. Win + number Win + 3 This works well for items positioned from 1 to 10 where is the first item and is the tenth item on the Taskbar. What about more items in the Taskbar? Win + 1 Win + 0 You are free to navigate through the items on the Taskbar using followed by using the arrow keys to select the desired item. Win + T If you want to toggle the system tray then use and select the desired item. You can open Windows Action Center using and toggle the notifications and settings from the same. Win + B Win + A Desktop Selections You can bring the focus to the Desktop using which will minimize all the apps in focus currently. You can then use arrow keys to navigate around the apps and can select multiple items using keys to move around the items and pressing to select the desired items. Win + D Ctrl + Arrow spacebar You can also directly open the properties of any file using after selecting the desired file. Alt + Enter Recent Activity You can view your recent activity using for the last 3 days or up to last 30 days if you let Microsoft store your activity history but I won’t recommend you to do so. Win + Tab You can switch between applications and even open applications which were closed by you in the last 3 days using the recent activity. Snap Multiple Apps on a single Screen Windows lets you snap multiple applications on a single screen by splitting the screen into halves. In Windows 10, you get a which automatically suggests you snap other applications as soon as you snap one application on the screen. This can be done simply by using keys to snap the app to either side of the screen. Snap Assist Feature Win + Arrow Browser Shortcuts Surfing the web will become easier and faster for you if you use these shortcuts to achieve these tasks. So here you go: You can open a new tab using and close it using If you want to reopen the closed tab than you can reopen it using . Tabs: Ctrl + T Ctrl + W. Ctrl + Shift + T You can switch to a particular tab using where a number (1–8) is the position of the tab from the left, so is the first tab and is the last tab. If there are more than 8 tabs than you won’t be able to switch to the desired tab directly after the 8th position. You are free to navigate between the tabs using to switch to the next tab and to switch to the previous tab. Switch Tabs: Ctrl + number Ctrl + 1 Ctrl + 9 Ctrl + Tab Ctrl + Shift + Tab There’s no quick shortcut for duplicating a tab on Web Browsers instead of just Right clicking on the tab and selecting the ‘Duplicate Tab’ option. But there’s a trick for duplicating a tab using the keyboard and that is by first highlighting the URL using or and then using the to duplicate the Tab. Duplicate Tab: Alt + D Ctrl + L Alt + Enter You can go back using and go forward using Alt + Left Arrow Alt + Right Arrow. You can open a new window using and a new private window using . Ctrl + N Ctrl + Shift + N You can complete the URL using which adds a to the end of the entered URL so it won’t work for domains other than the Top-Level Domain. Ctrl + Enter com .com You can view your Downloads using , History using and Bookmarks using . Ctrl + J Ctrl + H Ctrl + Shift + O You can Bookmark any webpage using . Ctrl + D You can open your Homepage using . Alt + Home You can select the next element using and the previous element using . Tab Shift + Tab You can view inspect element using and page source using . Ctrl + Shift + I Ctrl + U Document Shortcuts When I am writing a document, I hate switching to a mouse just to increase the font size or to make a text bold. And I am sure you were also looking for a better way to achieve these tasks, so here you go: You can make the text bold using , italic using and underline using Ctrl + B Ctrl + I Ctrl + U. You can increase the text size using and decrease it using . Ctrl + Shift + > Ctrl + Shift + < You can add Emojis (😃) to your documents using or Win + . Win + ; You can select multiple characters using keys. Shift + Right Arrow You can select an entire line of text with the cursor at the beginning using or if the cursor is at the end. Shift + End Shift + Home You can change between the languages installed on your machine using . Win + Spacebar Bonus As I promised at the beginning of the article, here are some for you which will boost your productivity: bonus tools : A keystroke launcher for quicker access to your apps, files, and folders in Windows. Ueli : It lets you capture or record any area of your screen and share it with a single press of a key. It also allows uploading images, text or other types of files to over 80 supported destinations you can choose from. ShareX Ready to use your Keyboard Shortcut Superpowers? Now you know the quickest way to achieve all these tasks by using keyboard shortcuts which would definitely save you some time and make your life simpler. So next time when you browse the web or edit a document, you will have shortcuts for everything and all you need is practice to get used to it. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this! If you enjoyed it, please give it a bunch of claps as it’ll help more people see this story. ❤

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