My work involves using the Internet constantly. And depending on what you do, your job probably involves a lot of online tasks as well. Over the years, I have learned quite a few shortcuts that I use every day to speed things up.
And while the title makes it look like there are only five shortcuts, I actually cover five activities, each with multiple shortcuts! Overall, you will see around eighteen of my time-saving keyboard shortcuts! So, what are you waiting for? Click that play button!
Note from Eric: Below, you will find a word-for-word transcript of this video. I provide this as an aid for the hearing-impaired and for those who might just want to read it rather than watch the video. This conversational style is not reflective of how I write. Be nice!
Hey, I am Eric Spellmann and today’s topic is not necessarily one about Online Marketing but it is really important. You know getting things done quickly is key to me. I’ve got so many things on my plate. And so much of what I do involves using the internet. So anytime I learn a little tip about speeding up some of my normal everyday internet activities, I write it down and I start using it.
So, I have a lot of people asking how can they save time doing this and that on the internet? I’m about to show you. And a lot of it has to do with keyboard shortcuts. In other words, not having to take your hand and move it to the mouse and do all sorts of stuff to do everything you normally do. So, let’s get started. Here are my top 5 time saving internet keyboard shortcuts
But, you know before we get started. Realize that I’m a Windows guy, and so your Apple results may vary. I do not know that you work on Apple coz I don’t use Apple computers. I have an Apple iPhone but I don’t use their computers. So don’t hold me accountable and don’t drop a lot of hate on me if some of these things don’t work in the Apple world.
This does however work on just about every browser out there; you remember the thing that allows you to look at webpages. Chrome is what I use, but it also works on the newest version of Internet Explorer and Firefox. So, all of these shortcuts you see should work on just about all of them. Like I said though, Chrome is what I use on a regular basis.
So, here we go. Number 1, many times I land on a website and I can’t read the text coz it’s so small. Or I need to zoom in on something. And instead of going to the menu and doing that I found some easier ways. One of my favorites, and this is what I use the most is hold down the “Ctrl” key and then you know the little wheel on your mouse. Spin it! Up will zoom you in and down will zoom you out, while holding down the “Ctrl” key.
I love that one; I use it all the time. The problem however, is sometimes I just don’t to mess with the mouse at all. So you can also use “Ctrl +” and “Ctrl –“ to do the same thing. One of my favorite things however, if I have got it all zoomed in and I want to just get back to normal, you know 100%. All I have to do is hit “Ctrl 0”. (This is a zero not an O!). So if you’ve been zooming and messing with the zoom factor in the browser, hitting “Ctrl 0” gets you back to the default level.
F11 is another one, where you go full screen. So you can see more of the webpage. So if the website you’re working on has a lot of information, you can see all of it without the banners and without the tabs by simply going into Full Screen mode by hitting F11. And of course hitting F11 takes you out of it as well! So zooming, one of my biggest
Next, find it quick. I’m always searching the internet for something, which means I’m always needing to type something in the address bar. So, one of my easiest ways if I’m looking at a webpage and I was kind of scrolling down and I want to get right back up to the address bar and type something new in, instead of using my mouse to click in the address bar, I just hit “Ctrl L”, or “Alt D” or “F6”, take your pick. And what it does is it puts the cursor in the address bar. The focus is what we call it. Try it, my favorite is “Ctrl L”, but I’ve also given you 2 others you can try as well.
“Ctrl F” is Find on Page, which means search the current page for something. For instance, maybe you’re on Google and you did a quick search and it brings you up this huge, long page. And you know that what you’re searching for is somewhere on this page but you don’t want to scroll all the way down looking for it. Easiest way is to do a Find on Page search. “Ctrl F” brings up the search box, you type in a keyword and it will jump down to what you were looking for on that page, if it’s a really long webpage.
If it’s mentioned multiple times, you can hit “Ctrl G” over and over and over to go to the next found match. Interestingly enough, I didn’t include it on here coz I don’t use it that much. But “Ctrl Shit G’, goes back up. So if you’ve searched and heres one, heres one, heres one, heres one. And then you hit “Ctrl Shift G”, it goes backwards up that list. So, play with it. I think you’ll like it. I use “Ctrl L” the most, “Ctrl F” and “Ctrl G” to move down.
Scrolling like a boss, coz that’s what it’s all about here. You know webpages are big, and scrolling through them and scanning them is something that I do quite a bit, coz who has time to read an entire webpage. So many times what I’m doing is scanning. So to do that, you’ve got to be able to scroll like a boss.
And that means not having to take you mouse over there and having to click on that teeny tiny little scroll bar arrow at the bottom you know and try to scroll, click click click. And then it gets off and not trying to grab that little block and drag it up and down on the scroll bar. NO! If you want to scroll like a boss, you do these things.
Number 1, you pull up a webpage, you’ve finished reading it and you want to go to the next section and you want to scroll up like a whole range. Just hit space bar once, tap it. It will scroll it up. Hit space bar again, it will do it again until you get to the end of the page. I love space bar, it’s a 1 tap. Keep going, keep reading, keep going and still scanning, I use it all the time.
You can also use Page Up and Page Down to do the exact same thing. And of course, you can hit Home at any time to jump all the way to the top of the page or the End button to go all the way to the end. That way you’re not having to just scroll ALL the way up!
I use these all the time. And of course, as you probably already know, you can just use the scroll wheel once you’re on a page, to scroll down the page if you want. But once again, that requires you to take your hand off the keyboard. And I’m always about staying on the keyboard if I can, because that speeds me up.
Middle click – I got this in here just because some people might be wondering why I haven’t mentioned it. I don’t use that much. But if you are scanning, you can click the wheel on your mouse. And you will see a funny little symbol and then you can kind of move your mouse down.
And as you slowly move your mouse down and stop, it will start just slowly, scrolling up, without you doing anything. You can take you hand off the mouse and it will keep scrolling, slowly. So, I call it the middle click. I don’t use it that much, but some people do and they love it.
History is history! This is one I get asked about quite a bit. You want to see where you’ve been on that machine or if your kids have been using that machine, you want to see where they’ve been. Simply hit “Ctrl H”. And it will bring up History showing you where people have been on that machine.
“Ctrl Shift Delete” will bring up the window that allows you to delete your history. So if your IT guy told you to clear up all that stuff to speed up your system, this is how you do it really quickly without searching for it in the Settings menu. Holding down all 3 “Ctrl Shift Delete” will bring up the Clear History window immediately.
Well, as always if you have any questions don’t hesitate to give me a call, shoot me an email and ask me. And heck, if you have a shortcut that I didn’t mention that you use all the time, let me know that too, I want to hear from you. Have a great day and I will see you in cyberspace.