# Which keyboard keys have you never used?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-keyboard-keys-have-you-never-used/776815>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [January 10, 2017, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-keyboard-keys-have-you-never-used/776815 "2017-01-10T15:28:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-keyboard-keys-have-you-never-used/776815/61 "2017-01-12T20:41:53Z")

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Kinda relevant: how hard is it to re-map keys to do what you want? For instance, can I re-assign F7 to type out “4545 Wilcox Street, Riverside CA 95128”? It’d sure save me a whole mess of typing!

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**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-keyboard-keys-have-you-never-used/776815/62 "2017-01-12T22:54:13Z")

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I’ve only ever hit F12 on my laptop (airplane mode) by accident.

F6 mutes the volume, so I _have_ used that. But not F7 through F11.

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**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-keyboard-keys-have-you-never-used/776815/63 "2017-01-13T07:53:32Z")

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> [@septimus](#):
>
> Mention that I never touch the Fn keys has revealed the secret that I’m not up to speed on Microsoft Office. I use programs like _awk_ and _a.out_ for my spreadsheet needs. 🆒

The function keys aren’t Office keys. F1 is a Windows key: it has the same meaning in an non-broken Windows program. : Some programs use Fn keys when they start to run out of all other possible combinations, but not Office any more than any other program with hundreds of keyboard shortcuts.

I’ve never used the WINDOWS key, or the F11,F12 keys. F11 & F12 were added at or after the time when the Fn keys ceased to be useful to me. Of course, I used F1-F10 all the time when they were over on the left edge of the keyboard, and I still use the command line endit keys (F1-10) sometimes, but they were a lot more important with EDLIN.

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