Learn Moore | Ryan W. Moore

Practicing Shortcuts

You likely don't have that whole table of shortcuts memorized (yet!). With practice though, you should be able to learn quite a few. So, guess what we're going to do in this class. :)


Refer to the shortcuts listing as necessary.


  1. Open up Microsoft Office (keep this window open)
  2. Use alt-tab to switch between the two windows (From this point on, I don't want to see anyone using the mouse to switch between applications). Do this several times.
  3. Repeat these tasks a few times:
    1. Minimize them all (logo-m)
    2. Restore them back (logo-M)
  4. In the web browser, open up a new tab and go to a site where it asks you for several pieces of information. For example http://www.gmail.com and http://www.my.pitt.edu both require a username and a password.
  5. Click in the username text box (if it already doesn't have the focus).
  6. Type in your username and then jump to the password box by using tab.
  7. Type in your password.
  8. Pretend that you made a typo in the username box. Use shift-tab to put the focus in there again, and "fix" (ie, just retype your username) the mistake.
  9. Instead of clicking a "Log in" or "Sign in" button, just hit enter even if the focus is in the username or password text box.


Okay, now it's time to practice some shortcuts that are useful in word processors, such as Microsoft Word. You should already have Word open. The use of the words "SC" means that you should use a keyboard shortcut to accomplish the task, instead of the mouse.

  1. minimize all windows (SC)
  2. open up the Windows start button (SC)
  3. click "My Computer" (there's a way to do this without using the mouse /at all/. Can you figure it out?)
  4. find the hard drive of the computer, right click it, click properties (SC)
  5. take a screenshot of the hard disk usage (the current window) (SC)
  6. close the disk usage window (SC), close the "My Computer" window (SC)
  7. switch to Word (SC), paste in the screenshot (SC)
  8. open up the Windows start button (SC)
  9. right click "My Computer", choose properties (SC)
  10. notice that it gives information about the computer's RAM, processor, and so on
  11. take a screenshot of that information (SC)
  12. close that information (SC)
  13. switch to Word (SC), paste in the screenshot (SC)


Okay, good job. From here on out, we'll be doing our work only in Word.


  1. Looking at your screenshots, type up some information (a few sentences) about your computer (e.g., "My computer has 12GB of hard disk space, 8 of which is free. It has 512MB of RAM…"). Include all the technical information of your screenshots. Don't erase the screenshots.
  2. We want the text to appear before the screenshots. Move it there using only the keyboard shortcuts listed above. For example, you can place your cursor at the beginning of the text and select it (by holding down shift and pressing the right arrow). Then you can cut the text, move your cursor to the beginning of the document, and paste it in.
  3. Pretend we also want the screenshots to be on a separate page from the text. Insert a manual page break after the text (SC).
  4. Look at your neighbors text that they've typed up describing their computer and write a few sentences about it (e.g., "My neighbor's computer has…"). Introduce yourself and/or wait for them to reach this spot as necessary. If their computer is identical to yours that is okay. Try to type without looking at the keyboard.
  5. Using the keyboard shortcuts that let you move the cursor to the left or right 1 word, and the shortcuts that let you select the word to the left or right of the cursor, perform the following (if you'd like, you may use the double-click-to-select-a-word shortcut for the second description only [you'll still have to use the keyboard shortcuts to do bold, italics, and underline]):
    1. If you're running low on time, only do this for a few words (so that you can complete the lab)
    2. Make every other word of both computer descriptions bold
    3. Make every third word of both computer descriptions italicized
    4. Make every 4th word of both computer descriptions underlined.
  6. Jump to the VERY end of the document (SC) and type your name. (e.g., "Count Chocula")
  7. Jump to the beginning of the current line (SC) and type "This document brought to by: "
  8. Jump to the end of the current line (SC) and type "!" to make this exercise even more exciting!
  9. Save (SC) the document to the desktop
  10. Clicking the Office button, choose save as and save it as a normal .doc file to your desktop (the file format that mentions being compatible with Office 2003 is what you want).
  11. Call me over and I'll mark your name down and give you credit!