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Tech Talk Tuesday is a new feature on The Zen Introvert. April’s Theme is Computer Keyboard Hacks to make your life easier.
Faster Formatting
You have a deadline, you have highly formatted document due, and highlighting and hitting the underline, bold and italic buttons with your mouse is driving you CRAZY.
Or picture this. You’re in an editor we all know and love and notice there’s no underline button on the toolbar. WTH?
But wait! There’s a solution ….
rawpixel / Pixabay
Faster Formatting
You have a deadline, you have highly formatted document due, and highlighting and hitting the underline, bold and italic buttons with your mouse is driving you CRAZY.
Or picture this. You’re in an editor we all know and love and notice there’s no underline button on the toolbar. WTH?
But wait! There’s a solution ….
Note: If you’re a Mac user, simply swap CTRL for the Command Key
Note2: The key you press with Ctrl is not case sensitive. For clarity, I’m using the capitalized version here.
Be Bold With Your Words
Ctrl+B. BOLD This works in most word processing programs and graphics packages. Highlight the word you want to BOLD or UNBOLD and Ctrl+B.
Underline The Emphasis
Ctrl+U. Underline. Though underlining and italics generally have the same meaning, underlining is mostly used to make particular words stand out whereas italicizing text has become a standard for emphasizing book titles and quote. As with the command above, highlight the word you want to underline or de-underline? Um…un-underline. Well, you get it. Highlight the word and then type Ctrl+U.
Make Your Quotes Stand Out
Ctrl+I. Italicize. Yes, that’s a capital I (eye). Yes, the ell (l) and the I (eye) look the same … sorry, it’s this font. That’s the problem with a theme that has Sans Serif fonts (Fun Fact – Serif fonts have the extra fancy pieces on them – see the Times New Roman text). Italicize quote and book titles. It’s also perfectly okay to italicize something you would also underline for emphasis that stands out from the rest of your text.
I Want It ALL!!
Ctrl-A. Select All. Sometimes you just want it all and with this key combo, you can have it all! Just put your cursor anywhere in your document and type Ctrl+A. The entire document will highlight. Then do to it what you want. Ctrl+A is very handy when you want to copy (Ctrl+C) or cut (Ctrl+X) your document and paste (Ctrl-V) it into another doc. ADD LINK FOR LAST WEEK’s DOC.
Recap
Ctrl+B – Bold
Ctrl+U – Underline
Ctrl+I – Italicize
Ctrl+A – Select All
Related Articles
Keyboard Shortcuts for Copyright and Trademark Symbols
That’s All She Wrote!
Next week on our last week of April, we’ll be looking past the CTRL keys to key combinations to make your computer sing.
Say ‘To Tech with IT’ and go out and tame your tech monster!
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