# What is your favorite keyboard shortcut that almost nobody uses? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 17, 2018, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803 "2018-08-17T19:32:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/41 "2018-08-20T04:24:03Z")
The one I use constantly is Shift+Tab. Any time Tab advances you forward Shift+Tab goes backwards. Think about filling out a form online and tabbing from one field to the next, see a mistake, Shift+Tab goes to the previous fields. Try it out. Click down in the quick reply box below. Hit Tab and watch the cursor go from the reply box to Post Quick Reply to Go Advanced. Now hit Shift+Tab and it’ll go in the other direction. It also comes in very handy with spreadsheets. Tab goes left to right across the cells, Shift+Tab goes right to left. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/42 "2018-08-20T05:05:20Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > The one I use constantly is Shift+Tab. Any time Tab advances you forward Shift+Tab goes backwards. > Think about filling out a form online and tabbing from one field to the next, see a mistake, Shift+Tab goes to the previous fields. > > Try it out. Click down in the quick reply box below. Hit Tab and watch the cursor go from the reply box to Post Quick Reply to Go Advanced. Now hit Shift+Tab and it’ll go in the other direction. > > It also comes in very handy with spreadsheets. Tab goes left to right across the cells, Shift+Tab goes right to left. And one more thing to add to that. When using a web browser (as long as you’re not in a text field). The space bar acts as a page down key. And, as you may have guessed, Shift+Space is Page Up. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/43 "2018-08-20T05:30:22Z")
One of my all-time favorites has been the space bar as a play/pause button. I think I had a web browser once that treated that space bar as a page-down key. Nice big target, for when you are not entering text. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/44 "2018-08-20T06:51:33Z")
Option-leftarrow-Shift to select the word I just [del]misstyped[/del]mistyped so I can quickly redo it without missing a beat. Command-rightarrow to jump to the end of the line (or Command-leftarrow for the start of the line). ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/45 "2018-08-20T12:50:05Z")
Ctrl-Alt-Minus (the Minus on the num pad) makes an em dash in Word. I use this all the time, although it’s probably less useful ever since the Word autocorrect started replacing two dashes with an em dash automatically. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/46 "2018-08-20T15:06:12Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > For me, it’s CTRL-SHIFT-T = reopen the last closed tab in a browser. Never heard of this and now it will float to the top of my list. For the browsers shortcuts in this thread, are these specific to one browser or have they been adopted as a de facto standards? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/47 "2018-08-20T15:24:03Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > In OS X, Option + Shift + F11 or F12 = fine volume adjustment. Apple volume has 16 increments using just the volume up/down commands, but the above quadruples the number of increments. Well, I’ll be. Had no idea this existed. Not sure I usually need that level of granularity, but sometimes at lowest volume, it might be nice to go down a 1/4 step at a time before muting. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/48 "2018-08-20T15:53:58Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > I’ve always found Alt + F4 useful. Give it a shot and let me know what you think. 😃 That was a common joke in a couple of online flight sims I used to play. E.g. “Group chat \: Hey, how do I raise my landing gear?” “\: Alt-F4” “System: \ has disconnected” Endless laughs. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/49 "2018-08-20T16:01:31Z")
Another vote for Alt-Tab to switch back and forth between the last two opened windows. I don’t actually use this one too often, but I find it especially nifty: Alt-Print Screen will copy just the active window to the buffer, not the whole screen. Also: F12 to open the HTML editor so I can purge some pages of excessive ads and animated frames by using the Delete Element command. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/50 "2018-08-20T16:07:23Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > I communicate through email a lot with a man named Jürgen. In Outlook and other MS Office products, you can get the umlaut by hitting the virtual umlaut character, Ctrl + colon . Since the colon is a shifted function, it’s ctrl-shift-colon. Then type the “u” and it comes out with an umlaut. It may be more convenient to set up an auto-correct rule to correct Jurgen to Jürgen. In Outlook, go to Options -\> Mail Options -\> Spelling and Autocorrect (under Compose Messages section) -\> Autocorrect Options, then add a rule under “Replace text as you type.” I believe these options are common among all Office products, so once you set it up in Outlook it should work in Word and others. I also use these custom Autocorrect options to enter special characters, e.g. \diameter to ⌀. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/51 "2018-08-20T16:08:12Z")
In YouTube: , and . to advance/rewind video one frame at a time. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/52 "2018-08-20T16:10:47Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Command +, Command -, resizes web pages. Sometimes the type is too small to read comfortable, other times there is awkward placement due to the size. Ctrl \ (i.e. turn the scroll wheel on the mouse while holding down the Ctrl key) does the same, at least on Windows. And this works in most applications, not just browsers. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/53 "2018-08-20T16:23:19Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Never heard of this and now it will float to the top of my list. > > For the browsers shortcuts in this thread, are these specific to one browser or have they been adopted as a de facto standards? I can’t speak for all browsers, but all the browser shortcuts I use work in Firefox and in Chrome, for Windows as well as Linux. I suspect that the other popular browsers work the same. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/54 "2018-08-20T16:30:29Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > … if I happen to walk past an unlocked, unattended computer, I invert the screen, or change it to monochrome. I have threatened that if it continues to happen, I will send emails from their open screen to their line managers, saying “I long to run naked into your waiting arms, also, I broke policy and left my machine unlocked” I’ve gone into Outlook and used the Autocorrect Options to make it changed a word that he types into a different word. Actually, it was the first name of his manager that I changed. You can get creative here. > [@scr4](#): > > It may be more convenient to set up an auto-correct rule to correct Jurgen to Jürgen. In Outlook, go to Options -\> Mail Options -\> Spelling and Autocorrect (under Compose Messages section) -\> Autocorrect Options, then add a rule under “Replace text as you type.” That’s an excellent suggestion, and seeing as how I’m already familiar with Autocorrect, I should have thought of it myself. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/55 "2018-08-20T17:17:55Z")
I never would have guessed that CTRL+Z/X/C/V/Y/F weren’t common. I use MS Word for a living, though, so that could be why. 🙂 The one I haven’t seen here yet is CTRL+E to open a Windows explorer/file explorer window. I use that a lot. I used to use CTRL+P to print, but for whatever reason these days I prefer to use the file menu (or icon). > [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > For me, it’s CTRL-SHIFT-T = reopen the last closed tab in a browser. I stumbled upon it many years ago by chance, but have used it thousands of times since then. I always work with many open tabs and often close a tab by mistake, and that’s the quickest way to fix that, much faster than wading through the browser history. In both IE and Chrome, I prefer to right-click on an open tab and select “Reopen closed tab.” I do frequently use CTRL+T to open a new tab, though. > [@Mangetout](#): > > Windows + L - lock the screen Yes! I still remember the day someone taught me that shortcut, and I no longer had to do the CTRL+ALT+DELETE thing to lock my screen. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/56 "2018-08-20T18:07:58Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > For moving windows around (at least in Windows 10), use Windows + arrow keys. E. g. Windows + right arrow pins the highlighted window to the right half of the screen, and shows a selection of your open windows (which you also get to via Windows + Tab) on the left; the window you select will then automatically be pinned to the left half, allowing quick comparisons, cut and paste, etc. between the two. > > Works also if you’ve got a window open that’s not displayed on the main screen (say, you RDP into a machine with more than one screen), and you want to move it to the active display. > > Also, ctrl - Windows - arrow left/right lets you switch between active desktops. This is the one that I came to add. After Ctrl C/V, it’s probably my next most used command. Windows-Left Arrow/Right Arrow make maximize 1/2 the screen size and continue with it again, continues to move it that direction. Windows key - up arrow maximizes that window into the current monitor, and Windows - Down arrow, undocks the window to it’s previous size. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/57 "2018-08-20T18:30:10Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > if I happen to walk past an unlocked, unattended computer, I invert the screen, or change it to monochrome. I have threatened that if it continues to happen, I will send emails from their open screen to their line managers, saying “I long to run naked into your waiting arms, also, I broke policy and left my machine unlocked” One of these days, HR is going to want to have a talk with you… ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/58 "2018-08-20T18:49:34Z")
Remap the \ key–which exists only as a legacy from the days of mechanical typewriters–to \ or \. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/59 "2018-08-20T18:59:23Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > Ctrl \ (i.e. turn the scroll wheel on the mouse while holding down the Ctrl key) does the same, at least on Windows. And this works in most applications, not just browsers. Add to that, Ctrl+0 sets the window back to 100%. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Remap the \ key–which exists only as a legacy from the days of mechanical typewriters–to \ or \. I get really annoyed at how often I hit the Number Lock key on my keyboard and suddenly the numbers don’t work anymore, or worse, I end up editing some other field. My new lap top is even worse, luckily I found a registry edit and now the Num Lock key is disabled. Doesn’t do anything anymore. I’ve never used the number pad for anything other than typing numbers anyway. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2018, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803/60 "2018-08-20T19:28:37Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > That was a common joke in a couple of online flight sims I used to play. E.g. > “Group chat \: Hey, how do I raise my landing gear?” > “\: Alt-F4” > “System: \ has disconnected” > > Endless laughs. Ha! Similar story from a different game for me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-keyboard-shortcut-that-almost-nobody-uses/819803.md?page=4)