Hundreds of Shortcuts to Make You a Better Internet User

Q: I was shocked to discover that CTRL+F could be used to search through any document or Web page. Of course, you now have me wondering what other universal shortcuts exist that I haven't learned about during my years surfing the Internet.

A: We recently spoke with Dan Russell, a search anthropologist at Google, and were shocked to find that, based on Google's large studies of random people, 90 percent of Internet users in the United States don't know how to use CTRL+F, the command that will allow you to quickly search through a document or Web page. "I do these field studies and I can't tell you how many hours I've sat in somebody's house as they've read through a long document trying to find the result they're looking for," Russell said.

That got us thinking: What other basic commands are people unaware of, commands that help us to become more productive Internet users? Apparently Lifehacker's Melanie Pinola was thinking the same thing. Using a macro presented by Help Desk Geek, Pinola ran a command through Microsoft Word to fish out 11 pages of built-in shortcuts for the program.

While all of Pinola's shortcuts were taken directly from Microsoft Word, many of the most basic -- select all, copy, paste, etc. -- can be applied to a number of programs and browsers and will help any new or uninformed Internet user to become quicker at completing routine tasks. Pinola assembled all of the shortcuts into one large Google document, which can be edited and expanded. For those who would prefer to print out a copy and keep it near their desktop, there's also a PDF version.

Tools mentioned in this entry:

• SHORTCUTS

More questions? View the complete Toolkit archive.

Image: Lifehacker.