3
NAVIGATE THROUGH WINDOWS
Navigating through content is much easier and quicker
when you can do it through keyboard shortcuts, and these
three are particularly useful. First up, press Alt and either the
left or right arrow key to navigate backward and forward through
pages or screens. This one is especially helpful because it works
across programs, including Windows Explorer, web browsers,
and apps such as Spotify. Because almost ever y program seems
to put its back and forward buttons in different places, this
keyboard shortcut saves you searching for them.
>> You probably know that pressing Space in web browsers
scrolls you a certain way down the page, much like the Page
Down key. If you accidentally press Space and want to get back
to where you were, just hold Shift and press Space again. It’s
useful for those times you accidentally zip down the page and
lose your place.
>> Another shortcut that’s useful for undoing an action is
Ctrl-Shift-T. Use this in a web browser and it reopens the most
recently closed tab.4
TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR DESKTOP
Now that Microsoft insists on confusingly storing
Windows settings in both the Settings and Control Panel
programs, you need a quick way to get to them as you embark
on a wild goose chase trying to uncover where Microsoft hid the
hibernation options. For the Settings program, press Win-I to
bring it up [Image C]. For the Control Panel, your quickest option
is to press Win-R, type control, then press Enter.D>> One underrated and very underused feature of
Windows 10 is its ability to create virtual desktops. These
are useful if you want to keep different tasks separate
from each other—one virtual desktop for work, and
another for planning a holiday, for example. To quickly
create a new virtual desktop, press Win-Ctrl-D. Hold
Win-Ctrl and press the left or right arrow keys to switch
between desktops, and press Win-Ctrl-F4 to close the
current desktop.
>> Alternatively, if you have one desktop spread across
more than one monitor, you can access Windows 10’s
display options by pressing Win-P [Image D]. This
enables you to choose whether to duplicate your main
display on to the secondary monitor(s), extend your
main desktop, or only show content on one screen.5
OTHER USEFUL SHORTCUTS
There’s a multitude of other handy shortcuts
in Windows 10, including pressing Win and =
together, which opens the magnifier tool to help you
zoom in on hard-to-read text. Elsewhere, pressing F2
when a file is highlighted enables you to rename it.
>> Most people know that pressing Print Screen copies
an image of your current screen to the clipboard, but that
requires you to then open an image-editing program,
paste the image, and save it. Instead, press Win-Print
Screen and Windows automatically saves an image of
your screen to your “Pictures > Screenshots” folder.
Alternatively, press Alt-Print Screen to copy an image
of only the currently active window to the clipboard, or
you can press Win-Shift-S to capture only a portion of
the screen.
>> And we’ve saved the best for last. When Windows
inevitably bugs out on you, press Win-F to automatically
take a screenshot, open the Feedback Hub, and then
attach the screenshot to it. You know even Microsoft
recognizes the frequency of Windows bugs when it
creates a specific shortcut for reporting them.CWindows Explorer is more than just a simple app—it has
a veritable gold mine of shortcuts that enable you to get
much more from it.
For instance, pressing Num Lock and * expands every
folder below the one you’ve currently selected; Num Lock-
Minus (-) collapses them all again. Num Lock-Plus (+)
expands the currently selected folder without expanding
its subfolders. Note that this only works with the plus and
minus keys on the number pad.
When you’ve selected a file, press Alt-P to open the
preview pane. Alt-Enter opens the Properties window for
the file. Pressing Alt and either up, left, or right enables
you to navigate through folders, and holding Ctrl while
scrolling the mouse wheel up or down changes the size and
appearance of the folder icons.
Press Alt-D to highlight the address bar; you can then
copy the highlighted location into the “Save” dialog box
in your web browser to save a file there, for example.
Finally, you can press Ctrl-Shift-N to create a new folder
in the current location.WINDOWS EXPLORER
SHORTCUTS
maximumpc.com DEC 2019 MAXIMUMPC 69