Shortcuts. Secret bits of knowledge that make your life that much easier. Computers make use of a number of shortcuts to simplify tasks. Shortcuts can be links on your desktop that launch your oft-used programs, bookmarks that keep track of your favorite web sites, or items in your Start Menu that connect you to your important documents. But here's something you may not know: There are many shortcuts within office suite programs that can prove to be very useful. These are keyboard commands that automate many of the actions you perform regularly when working with a new document, spreadsheet, or database.

Don't get me wrong, I love the point-and-click ease of a Windows menu, but when your fingers are flying across the keyboard, it can be a drag to stop and pick up a mouse.

In this Help2Go article, we'll show you:

• How to get to a list of useful shortcuts in office suite programs

Finding the shortcuts

You may remember an article from Help2Go on "cutting and pasting," but that is just one example of the kind of keyboard commands you can use. The first thing we need to do is find a list of the available shortcuts with explanations of what they do.

In this example, we'll be using Microsoft Word 97, but the same basic steps can be used in Excel, Access, or even the Corel PerfectOffice applications.

1. Start Microsoft Word and open a new, blank document.
2. Click on the Help menu at the top of the window
3. Select Microsoft Word Help (or strike the F1 function key-- see what I mean about shortcuts?)
4. Type "shortcut keys" in the blank space and click on the Search button. You will now be presented with a list of matching Help topics.
5. Click on the first entry. You should now see a window similar to Figure 1:

Figure 1

If we select "Use keys to edit and move text and graphics", the following list appears:

Figure 2

From just this list alone, you can see that there are many common actions that can be completed with a few key combinations instead of working your way through the appropriate menus with your mouse.

Do you need to insert the trademark symbol?
ALT + CTRL + T

Want to move the cursor up to the start of a paragraph?
CTRL + Up Arrow

And so on...

By selecting the Options menu and choosing Print Topic (ALT + O, P), you can have the entire list handy when you're working on a document. I'm sure you'll discover at least a few shortcuts that will become favorites. Try them and see.