Switching between programs
One of the easiest ways to save time while working at your computer is to use keyboard shortcuts. So in this video I'm sharing with you seven of my favorite Windows keyboard shortcuts so you can save time.
And let's don't waste any time and jump right into my first shortcut which has all to do with switching programs in applications. Let's say that I'm working on this Excel document but I need to jump into my word document.
I could keep coming down here to the task bar and go back and forth between these applications. But if I'm in the middle of writing something here, it might be faster since my fingers are already on the keyboard to use Alt-Tab.
To use this all you need to do is hold down Alt and then select Tab. Now you wanna keep all held down while you cycle through all of your applications.
So for example if I wanna jump back into that word document, I just need to hit Tab until I hover over that application and then release the Alt key. If I wanna go back to that spreadsheet, again Alt select Tab and then I can immediately be brought back to the second one in my list here.
If I don't need to cycle through everything or go to another application, it's gonna bring me to the second one in this list. So for example if I'm just going back and forth between these two, I can just select Alt-Tab on my keyboard.
Now you can get your mouse involved if you want. If I select Alt-Tab to bring up this menu, you can see that my cursor still has an effect.
So if I wanna jump into this paint application, I can click it and it will bring me there as well. So a quick and easy way, this is especially useful if you're giving a presentation and you want to quickly jump back and forth between applications.
Snap windows to sides (split-screen)
Next let's take a look at how we can take advantage of using a split screen view right here within windows. Maybe you don't benefit from using multiple monitors, but you'd still like to have two applications side by side.
All you need to do is within the application that you want to see is hit the Windows key and then either the left arrow key or the right arrow key, depending on where you want it to end up. So in this case I wanted on the left-hand side I'm gonna hit Windows and then that left arrow key, and when I release it, it's actually going to show me all of my open applications.
So now I can choose which application I want on the right-hand side. I'm gonna select this Excel spreadsheet, and now they are perfectly split left and right.
So I can be working over here on the left, but referencing data and referencing information here on the right-hand side.
Open pinned taskbar apps
The next shortcut on our list is gonna help us quickly and easily open up some of our most used applications. You're probably already familiar with pinning certain applications to your task bar down below.
This can be really useful if there are certain apps that you use on a daily or at least a regular basis. So you don't always have to come here to the search window or hit the start key as well.
But there's a quicker way to open up these applications than always bringing your cursor down to the bottom of the screen. So for example, if I'm working here within Excel and I wanna quickly work out a calculation without actually entering it into my document, I wanna open up my calculator app.
But instead of dragging my cursor all the way down, I can use the combination of a Windows key and the position that that application is in. So here you can see it is the second one that is pinned.
So if I select Windows and then the number two key, it's going to immediately open up this application for me because it's in the second position. So once again, let's in this case let's open up Outlook.
Let's see Outlook is one, two, three, four, five, six, so if I hit Windows and then the six key, it's going to immediately open up my Outlook account.
So this can be a great way to quickly and easily open up the applications that you want to use without having to make use of your mouse.
Search for programs and files
But of course, not all of your applications are going to be pinned down below. In some cases you're gonna have to go and search for the application or maybe search for the file over here.
Well instead of having to come down to the search bar, we can get there that much faster by selecting the Windows key plus the S key. Windows S is going to immediately not only open up this dialogue, so we might be able to click on something that is a most frequently used app or something that was recently used, but you can see that my cursor is already waiting for me down below.
Lemme close this down for just a second to do that one more time for you. Windows S and now I can immediately start typing in the file or the application that I'm looking for.
So these quick and easy wins to get you to where you wanna be that much faster.
Take a screenshot or snippet
The next shortcut key on our list is something that I use all of the time. When I want to share something with someone else often I need to take a screenshot, whether that's of a dialog box, whether that's of an image, or just something else on my screen.
So in this case perhaps I want to include this logo or this image for example into this document here on the left-hand side. So Windows has a fantastic screen grab and screenshot tool built right in.
In order to access it, you want to select Windows then Shift and then S. And what that's going to do it's going to gray out your screen for just a moment, but here you can see at the top of the screen, we have a few different options as to how we can get this snippet.
Now typically by default it's going to have this rectangular snip view. Meaning that now I've got these cross hairs and I can just click and drag over the part of the screen that I want to grab.
As soon as I release it, it is going to grab that, it's going to place it in my clipboard, and now we can go over here to this word document and I can paste it right in. If I go Control-V perfect, now I've got that image right here within my document.
But you'll see there's a few other ways in which we can snip images. So once again Windows, Windows Shift S and we're gonna have this option here at the top.
The second one is a free form snips. So in this case I'm gonna select it, and maybe I only want the PowerPoint logo in this case. So with my cursor, I'm going to click and hold, but this time it's going to highlight where I'm dragging.
I really like the way that they've set this up in the way that it continues to show me what is going to be grabbed before I release. I get to release it at this point.
Again as soon as I release, it's going to paste that image into the clipboard. I can come down here again, lemme just delete that previous one here. And I'm going to paste the new one.
Here you can see I don't have the addition of this graphic, I just have the logo cause I was able to grab it with that free form snip. You have a few other options available to you here as well.
This one is going to snip the entire window of the application that you're on, or if you just want to take an entire full screen snip, you can choose this last option. If you change your mind, just hit X, and you're brought back to whatever you last laid off.
Viewing the clipboard history
Since we're talking about snipping and screen grabbing, and then pasting things elsewhere, let's talk about our clipboard and accessing more than just your most recent copy. You're probably already familiar with grabbing something such as this text here and selecting Control-C, and then we can go and use Control-V to paste it somewhere else.
But what if I wanna go back and paste one of those images that I've already copied? Well because it's not the last thing I copied, I can only use Control-V and get that last piece of text.
If you want to access everything within your clipboard, you want to select Windows then V. And what that's gonna do is bring up this menu here, here you can see the text which is the most recent thing, but now we've got those snippets that we just use, we've got some other text, we've got other things even some things that I was copying and pasting from yesterday are contained within this clipboard.
So once again, just place your cursor as to where you would like to paste something from your clipboard, then select Windows V, and that's gonna bring up your entire recent clipboard. Now keep in mind there is going to be a limit. The limit is not the number of things which you've copied to the clipboard, it's actually the size of things.
Currently that maximum is four megabytes. So keep in mind the number of images that you've included on your clipboard that may reduce the total number of things found here. But let's say I wanna go down here, and this is something that I actually copied yesterday but it's still relevant and I'd like to add it to this document, I can select it and now I can paste it directly here in front of me.
So Windows V to bring up your entire clipboard.
Open the emoji library
Lastly, let's take a look at how we can liven up some of our documents or just make things a little bit easier to find with the emoji library right here within Windows. So regardless if you're within an application or if you're online, you can bring up the Windows emoji library by selecting Windows plus the period key.
What you can see here is that I'm first gonna see my most recent emojis right, the things that I've used most recently. But I can quickly and easily go through the different categories down below.
If I'm still having trouble finding what I want, and if you never want to get your cursor involved, you can start to type in what you're looking for right away. So for example, maybe I wanna find something that is food related, so I'm gonna start typing in the word food.
Now you may think that I'm typing in this word directly into this word document, but once I found the food that I want, let's say I'm gonna select the strawberry, it's going to now replace what I typed in.
It was only using that for it's search capabilities, and now I've got that emoji right here. Let's search for something else. Let's say I want to find a basketball, perfect I've searched for it, I've typed it in, I can just click it right here or I can hit enter.
Let's try that one more time. If I hit bat and then use my cursor to hit over or highlight over that particular emoji I can hit enter. And now in this case it's brought in a cricket bat for me as a part of this emoji search.
So if you're looking to add a little more color or just to make things a little more exciting within your applications, you can use the emoji library by selecting the Windows plus period key.
Now I realize that today's list was relatively short, but I would love to hear from you. There are so many Windows shortcuts that can help us save time. What are some of your favorites, please be sure to let me know in the comments down below.
Because I'm sure that there are others that are gonna benefit from your tips. As always thank you so much for watching today's video, I hope you give it a thumbs up and consider subscribing right here to the simple activity channel.
Thank you so much for watching today's video, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult, in fact it's very simple.
