If your mouse fails to respond to your commands, do you know how to navigate in the document you are working on, save it and close it? (29/31)

Keyboard shortcuts

Before the introduction of mouse commands, computers were operated using keyboard commands. Even today, when it is difficult to imagine a computer without a mouse, you can still use keyboard commands to execute certain tasks. You might certainly have noticed that in Word almost all clickable image objects or command buttons have an underlined letter – for example, the S letter in the File menu option Save. These letters in conjunction with the ALT, CTRL, and/or Shift keys are called the shortcut keys.

What to do when the mouse stops working?

Suppose that you are working on a document and suddenly your mouse stops working. You can still save the latest changes by holding down the Alt key and going to the Save option by using the down- and up-arrow keys or by pressing Ctrl+S. These keys allow you to navigate through the File menu, to your required option or across the menu bar. Once your cursor is in the right place (in this case, Save) press the Enter key to confirm your selection and your document will be saved. In order to close your document you can press the Alt key and the letter F to go back to the File menu, use the down-arrow key to go the option Close or Exit and confirm this with the Enter key.

Shortcut keys provide an easier and quicker method for navigation. In addition to the underlined letters in each program, there are other shortcut keys that can be used for several applications (see more on this at: http://www.pc-erfahrung.de/Index.html?Tastenkombinationen.html, available only in German).