Tip of the week # 447
10 May 2015

In a hurry? Take a shortcut! (Windows 7) ^*

You're not still moving the mouse pointer all the way to the bottom right-hand corner of your screen to have a look at your desktop, do you? Perhaps you know that WIN + D can be used as a toggle to minimize and maximize all windows? But what if you just want to have a quick peek at something on your desktop? Check out the preview shortcut!

Here's how:

1. Press and hold down the WIN key (the one next to your spacebar) and press the spacebar.
2. Release the WIN key to return to your last used window.

Interested in other shortcuts involving the spacebar? How about pressing the spacebar to scroll down or SHIFT + spacebar to scroll up? You can use this in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome - and even in a PDF file. Or why not press CTRL + spacebar to remove character formatting in MS Word? Remember, in an effort to help you work faster (and healthier) we launched a 'shortcut of the week' feature on our website back in March 2013. Those that I've published can be found in my shortcut archive (see shortcut_archive.pdf). OK, keyboard shortcuts can sometimes be unintuitive or hard to remember, but I will drip feed a new shortcut weekly, to help you to boost productivity without reaching for your mouse. In a hurry? Take a shortcut!

^* Unless stated otherwise, these tips were written for Microsoft Office 2010.