# Who knew ctrl-z and ctrl-y could be so interesting. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 8, 2009, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804 "2009-05-08T23:37:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/1 "2009-05-08T23:37:13Z")
Ok, so the answer to that is “Me and other computer geeks. But nobody else” I was just working on some PHP and as I made more and more changes to it it got worse and worse until the point where I realized why the changes I was making wouldn’t work anyway. So I held down the ctrl key, poised another finger over the z key, and… taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap… Then I realized I’d gone too far back. So I held my finger over the y key… taptaptaptaptaptap… Back to where the code was ‘most correct’. What makes it interesting is, I could see in ‘real-time’ an animation of the devolution and evolution of the code as I tap tap tapped. It was like… It was just cool ok? ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/2 "2009-05-09T00:21:26Z")
I do that all the time. It IS very cool. I love Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/3 "2009-05-09T02:22:08Z")
I wish real life had a Ctrl-Z and a Ctrl-Y. ---
**Author:** ![redshift](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbce88/32.png) [@redshift](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/redshift)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/4 "2009-05-09T02:26:50Z")
It took me a while to finally learn the CTRL Z/Y keys, before that I was manually hitting undo and redo every time through the menu. And it comes in handy when you’re doing cad work and you realized you made a whole bunch of simple mistakes. ---
**Author:** ![Idlewild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8491ac/32.png) [@Idlewild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idlewild)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/5 "2009-05-09T03:53:44Z")
I have a (n apple friendly) t-shirt that reads “Thank you, Command-z” and has a picture of the Command key. I rarely wear it because it’s too low cut to be decent, but I sure appreciate the sentiment. Although I get supremely irritated at programs that use command-z or control-z to toggle undo/redo and make you hit a third key to keep undoing repeatedly. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/6 "2009-05-09T16:19:58Z")
Slight hijack, but you know what else is fun? Control+v, on someone else’s computer. Even people who delete cookies and browser histories forget about this one. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/7 "2009-05-09T16:59:49Z")
What _isn’t_ fun is finding out there’s nothing stored in the clipboard ☹ ---
**Author:** ![in\_hiding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c5a1d2/32.png) [@in\_hiding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/in_hiding)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/8 "2009-05-09T18:33:36Z")
Its not very reliable, though. Most programs cut the undo history after some steps, and its very frustrating to know that you’d need just 2 more steps… but went back as far as possible. I try do it from time to time in real life. I’m tired, I mess something up when I’m not on the computer, and I think “undo!”. Once I even did the twitch my hand would do on the keyboard. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/9 "2009-05-09T22:39:49Z")
What does control-y do? Take you back to the very last edit? I like ctrl-shift-z. Steps you forward through edits which is handy if you ctrl-z too far. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/10 "2009-05-09T22:56:49Z")
ctrl-y does the opposite of ctrl-z. It’s ‘redo’. It takes you forward one edit at a time. It can only be used if you have already cntrl-zded. Edit: I use notepad++ to edit php. If it does have a limit to how far back you can go then it is a large limit. I was able to ctrl-z all the way back to the state the file was in when I first opened it. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2009, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/11 "2009-05-10T01:09:14Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > What does control-y do? Take you back to the very last edit? > > I like ctrl-shift-z. Steps you forward through edits which is handy if you ctrl-z too far. Some Apps use ctrl-y, and some use ctrl-shift-z, and many use both. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/12 "2009-05-11T03:11:13Z")
ctrl-y has _two_ Very Useful Functions. In addition to the aforementioned redo the last undone/ctrl-z command, it acts as a repeat the last command: if the undo buffer (?) is empty, it will act as the anti-undo and redo the voodoo that you do. If you’ve never used it like that, go open a Word document and play around a bit. It even redoes typing. Very, very handy. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/13 "2009-05-11T06:30:41Z")
Control-Z just makes your problem disappear for a while. Control-C makes it go away for good. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/14 "2009-05-11T06:33:00Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#): > > Slight hijack, but you know what else is fun? Control+v, on someone else’s computer. Even people who delete cookies and browser histories forget about this one. I’m not really sure what the OP is talking about, but this is true. I’m uber uber paranoid about this though. As soon as I a m done copying/pasting something, I copy and paste to the letter d or something innocuous. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/15 "2009-05-11T18:31:42Z")
You’re welcome. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Skeezix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/aca169/32.png) [@Red\_Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Skeezix)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/16 "2009-05-11T19:49:04Z")
Well I’m disappointed, i thought this thread was going to be about suspend/delayed suspend job control functionalities, but it seems like the OP isn’t a ‘real’ computer geek. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/17 "2009-05-11T20:12:03Z")
> [@Red\_Skeezix](#): > > Well I’m disappointed, i thought this thread was going to be about suspend/delayed suspend job control functionalities, but it seems like the OP isn’t a ‘real’ computer geek. 😃 but > [@control-z](#): > > You’re welcome. 😃 makes up for it 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/18 "2009-05-11T20:16:14Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#): > > Slight hijack, but you know what else is fun? Control+v, on someone else’s computer. Even people who delete cookies and browser histories forget about this one. What does this do? ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/19 "2009-05-11T20:18:05Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > What does this do? Pastes whatever is in the copy/paste buffer. Highlight some text, press Control-C. Then move the cursor somewhere else, press Control-V. Instant perfect copy. Even works to different windows/apps. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804/20 "2009-05-11T20:28:35Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > Pastes whatever is in the copy/paste buffer. Highlight some text, press Control-C. Then move the cursor somewhere else, press Control-V. Instant perfect copy. Even works to different windows/apps. The control fu is strong in this one! 🙂 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-knew-ctrl-z-and-ctrl-y-could-be-so-interesting/495804.md?page=2)