Shortcuts and Learning

I had a couple of requests for OneNote support this month and decided to take a look at the Office 365 version. Its been a few versions since I used OneNote and I wanted to refresh my understanding of what the software capabilities are. One of the things I looked at (in addition to building custom templates) were the shortcuts in the program.

I would never try to learn software from shortcuts, but I do find it useful to see what shortcuts the developers have built-in to a product. It shows what features they believe are most useful and popular.  When I spot a cluster of shortcuts like these:

Ctrl + 0  Remove all selected note tags
Ctrl + 1   Apply, select or clear the to do tag toggles through all options
Ctrl + 2   Toggles the important tag
Ctrl + 3   Toggles the question tag
Ctrl + 4   Toggles the remember for later tag
Ctrl + 5   Toggles the definition tag
Ctrl + 6   Toggles the highlight tag
Ctrl + 7   Toggles the contact tag
Ctrl + 8   Toggles the address tag
Ctrl + 9   Toggles the phone number tag

Then I can be sure that Tags are an important feature in the product.
When shortcuts have been assigned an easy to access and remember combination like Ctrl or Ctrl Shift indicates the priority level of the feature:

Ctrl Shift + 0   Delete the selected Outlook task
Ctrl Shift + 1    Create a today Outlook task from the selected note
Ctrl Shift + 2   Create a tomorrow Outlook task from the selected note
Ctrl Shift + 3   Create a this week Outlook task from the selected note
Ctrl Shift + 4   Create a next week Outlook task from the selected note
Ctrl Shift + 5   Create a no date Outlook task from the selected note
Ctrl Shift + 9   Mark the selected outlook task as complete
Ctrl Shift + E   Send the selected pages in an email message
Ctrl Shift + K   Open the selected Outlook task

Then I know the developers expect these functions to be frequently used.

Learning new software can feel overwhelming when you have a long To Do list. Spotting shortcut key clusters and priority patterns can help you to prioritize which features to learn first.

Oops! I closed that tab! (in Windows 10)

You’re working on a research project, and you’ve dug through the bowels of the internet to find some information that is relevant to your question. After a brief interlude of looking up which artist sang the song you have stuck in your head in a new tab, your caffeine-saturated finger muscles accidentally press the close button/Ctrl + W one too many times. Oh no! We’ve all been there, but not all of us know what to do about it. Until now.

Press Ctrl + Shift + T to reopen the tab you’ve just closed, and the tab you closed before that, and so on. What’s more, if your computer updated overnight and closed your browser, you can use this same trick after you open your browser back up to recall all the tabs that you lost. This trick works in every browser on Windows 10.

Windows 10 Emojis: A Shortcut

Imagine that you’re a CSIS agent, and you’ve been asked to write up a report regarding the text messages exchanged between two suspects in a terror plot. Straightforward enough – unless the suspects use emojis. What is your senior agent going to think if your report states that one suspect used the “exploding head” emoji? Without a way to show the emojis themselves in high resolution, confusion might ensue.

Of course, you could have plenty of mundane reasons to want emojis in your documents as well. Perhaps you want your emails in Outlook to seem more approachable, or maybe you want to construct a simulated text conversation on a PowerPoint slide. Fortunately, Windows 10 has a solution: a searchable emoji keyboard. This tool can be called upon in almost any Windows 10 app by pressing the  Windows Logo Key + . (period). The dialogue box that appears is the same in any app that you open it in, and has all the same emoji options that you have on your phone, as well as pre-made “kaomojis” [(づ ̄3 ̄)づ╭❤~, (❁´◡`❁), etc.]. You can keep typing in the same spot in the document to search for a specific emoji, or you can click on the dialogue box’s various category tabs to view related options.