You start typing only to realize 10 seconds later that the focus is on the wrong window. You see a Windows notification pop out of the taskbar only to have it fade away before you can figure out what it means. You get distracted by all of Windows' pointless animations. You miss seeing keyboard-shortcut hints on menu entries and elsewhere in Windows dialog boxes.
You could spend hours hunting for the settings that will do away with these four Windows annoyances. At least Vista collects them all in the Ease of Access Center. These usability settings are spread far and wide in XP.
Mouse over a window to make it the focus
About once or twice a week I find myself happily typing away only to discover after crafting the perfect memo opener or e-mail retort that the focus had switched to another open window. Not only have I lost the data I thought I was entering, I might inadvertently purchase a Winnebago if I press Enter while focused on the wrong page in my browser.
You can set Vista to change the focus to whichever window you mouse over via the Ease of Access Center. Press the Windows key and U to open it.
I described the top four options (all carryovers from XP's Accessibility Control Panel applet) in a previous post. To change focus by hovering, click "Make the mouse easier to use" and check "Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse" near the bottom of the dialog box. Click Save or Apply to activate the change.
The simplest way I know of to change this setting in XP is to use the free Tweak UI utility. After you download and install the program, open it and double-click Mouse in the left pane. Choose X-Mouse among the entries that appear, and check "Activation follows X-Mouse" in the right window.
Bonus tip: To keep programs from stealing the focus, choose Focus under General in the left pane, click "Prevent applications from stealing focus" in the right pane, and choose the number of times you want the window to flash when this happens.
Set Vista notification pop-ups to stay on screen longer
Sometimes the little windows that pop out of the taskbar to notify you of some event, such as a USB device you just plugged in being ready to use, disappear too quickly. To extend the duration of notification windows in Vista, click "Make it easier to focus on tasks" in the Ease of Access Center, scroll to the bottom of the resulting dialog box, and change the setting under "How long should Windows notification boxes stay open?" The default setting is 7 seconds, and the available options let you change this to 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, or 5 minutes. When you're done, click Save or Apply.
Extend the time Vista's notification windows stay visible via this setting in the Ease of Access Center.
(Credit: Microsoft)The only way I know of to change the duration of notification windows in XP is to tweak the Registry. This is also how you disable notifications altogether. I'll describe the procedure in a future post.
Knock off the frivolous animations
Save some CPU cycles--and maybe your tired eyeballs--by telling Windows to do without the fancy-schmancy animations. In Vista, click "Make it easier to focus on tasks" in the Ease of Access Center (the same dialog I described above for tweaking notifications), check "Turn off all unnecessary animations (when possible)" under "Adjust time limits and flashing visuals," and click Save or Apply.
To tone down the animations in XP, right-click My Computer, choose Properties > Advanced, and click Settings in the Performance section. Under the Visual Effects tab, click "Adjust for best performance," or choose Custom and select the options you do and don't want in the window below. When you're done, click OK twice.
Show shortcut keys on menu items
Microsoft doesn't always make it easy for people who prefer to navigate around Windows and their applications using keyboard shortcuts. To make the key hints visible on menus in Vista, click "Make the keyboard easier to use" in the Ease of Access Center, check "Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys" under "Make it easier to use keyboard shortcuts," and click Save or Apply.
See hints for shortcut keys on Vista menus by choosing this option in the Ease of Access Center.
(Credit: Microsoft)Add the shortcut-key hints to XP by right-clicking the desktop (or pressing Shift-F10 while on the desktop), choosing Properties, clicking Appearance > Effects, unchecking "Hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation until I press the Alt key," and clicking OK twice.
What I really want to do is add a link to Google Docs on the right-click (context) menu in Windows Explorer. That way, I could open a file in Google Docs by right-clicking it in Explorer and choosing Send To > Google Docs.
Well, I wasn't able to figure out how to do this. So instead, I created a shortcut to open Google Docs, and then I browsed to the file and opened it the old-fashioned way.
This won't save you a lot of time, but at least Google Docs makes it easy for you to transmit the file to the service as an e-mail attachment. And, of course, you can send the file to other e-mail recipients at the same time.
To create the shortcut to Google Docs, log in to the service, copy the URL in the address bar, right-click the desktop or any folder window, choose New > Shortcut, paste the URL in the Location field, click Next, type Google Docs (or the name of your choice), and press Enter (or click Finish).
Now navigate to the shortcut you just created, right-click it, and choose Properties. Click in the "Shortcut key" box, and type your preferred keyboard shortcut (I chose Ctrl-Alt-G).
Give your Google Docs shortcut a keyboard sequence to open the service in a flash.
(Credit: Microsoft)Now you can open the service by pressing the keyboard shortcut you just entered. Once it opens, choose Upload in the top-left corner of the window, browse to and select the file, give it a name (or use the existing file name), and click Upload File.
Alternatively, you can copy the unique e-mail address Google Docs generated for you under E-mail Your Documents and Files, open your e-mail program, paste the address in the To: field, and add any other recipients you want to send the file to. The file will be attached to the message automatically.
Google Docs limits your HTML and text files (including Word's .doc and .rtf) to 500KB, presentations to 10MB from your computer, and 2MB from a Web site (500KB as e-mail attachments), and spreadsheets to 1MB (spreadsheets can't be uploaded as e-mail attachments).
I'll keep looking for a way to add Google Docs to my right-click menu (either via the Open With or Send To submenus, or directly on the context menu), and when I find it, I'll let you know.
Tomorrow: remove unwanted items from your Send To menu.
Faster is almost always better, at least when it comes to computers. So what's the fastest way to open a word processor?
You can create a keyboard shortcut to open Notepad, WordPad, Word, or any other word processor on your PC by right-clicking the program's shortcut on the Start menu, choosing Properties > Shortcut > Shortcut key, entering your keystroke combination of choice (be sure not to overwrite one that's already in use), and pressing Enter. I described how to get fast access to all your keyboard shortcuts in a post from last week.
Now press the keystroke combination to open the program, and start typing (or navigate to an existing file you want to open). When you're done working in the file, press Ctrl-S, give the file a name (if it doesn't have one already), choose a location to store it (or accept the program's default storage folder), and press Enter. What could be simpler?
Well, skipping the file-naming and storage location-choosing steps, for one thing. And having access to the notes from any Internet-connected computer, for another.
Web word processors auto-save files
You can create a keyboard shortcut that opens Google Docs or any other Web word processor. Start by opening a new document in the service. Select the URL in the Address bar, and type Ctrl-C to copy it to the clipboard. Now open Windows Explorer to the Desktop or any other folder, right-click anywhere in the folder, choose New > Shortcut, paste the URL of the service into the location field, press Enter, give the shortcut a name, and press Enter again.
Next, right-click the shortcut you just created, click Properties > Shortcut > Shortcut key, type your preferred keystroke combination for opening the service, and press Enter. Now you can open the service ready to create a new file by pressing that keyboard shortcut.
Unfortunately, if you're not already logged in, you'll have to enter your username and password before you can open the blank file. You can avoid the login step by creating the shortcut to the Writer online word processor that mimics the look of old DOS-based text editors running on a green-phosphor display. (The service's bare-bones look is itself modeled after the free Dark Room word processor, which, in turn, is the Windows version of the WriteRoom word processor for Mac OS X.)
Since Writer doesn't require you to log in--or even to create an account--you need not give your files a name. Just stick with the default, and when you want to reopen the file, select it from your list of documents, which appears just below the text window.
Use the Writer online word processor for instant--and universal-access to your notes.
(Credit: John Watson/BigHugeLabs.com)Writer remembers your files by leaving a cookie with the identifying information. If you delete the cookie, you lose access to the files, unless you sign up for a free account. The account has the added benefit of providing access to your files from any Internet-connected PC.
Should you find Writer to your liking, be sure to make a donation to its creator to help keep the great services coming.
Monday: get more use out of Windows' taskbar.
If I could remember any, I would begin this post with an anecdote about how wonderful a good memory can be.
Instead, I'll just tell you how to put all your keyboard shortcuts and Windows commands in a text file that you can open quickly via keystrokes, or keep minimized for even faster access. And you can do it all without grabbing your mouse.
Start by finding a list of keyboard shortcuts. The one Microsoft put together works for me. Select all the text on the page from "General keyboard shortcuts" to just above "Other information." Press Ctrl-C to copy the text to the clipboard. (That's one of the few shortcuts I can actually remember.)
Open Notepad by pressing the Windows key (or Ctrl-Esc) and N. You can also open it by pressing the Windows key and R (if necessary), typing notepad.exe, and pressing Enter.
Press Ctrl-V to paste the plain text into a blank file, and type Alt-F, A to open the Save As dialog box. Give the file a name--"shortcuts.txt" works for me. Just be sure to use the ".txt" file extension and save the file to your desktop or some other location that's easy to access.
Save a list of keyboard shortcuts as a text file for easy access.
(Credit: Microsoft)Now open the file in Notepad and either make the Notepad window inconspicuous so it doesn't block your work apps, or keep it minimized and Alt-Tab to Notepad when you need to refer to the file. To move or resize the Notepad window (without using your mouse, of course), press Alt-spacebar, S, and then use the arrow keys to adjust the window size.
If you need to create a custom keyboard shortcut to open Notepad, press the Windows key and use the arrow and Enter keys to navigate to the Notepad shortcut on the Start menu (All Programs > Accessories > Notepad). Press the context-menu--which is sometimes called the application key--and then type R. (Note that Shift-F10 opens this menu in some applications.)
Use the Tab and arrow keys to navigate to the Shortcut keyboard text box under the Shortcut tab. Type the keystroke combination of your choice (Ctrl-Alt-N is one possibility), and press Enter.
Add Windows' commands to the list
Be sure to add your custom keyboard shortcuts to your shortcuts.txt file. While you have the file open, add all those commands you always forget about when you want to use Windows' command line to open a program or system tool. Microsoft provides a list of commands to open Control Panel applets. You'll also find a bunch of Windows commands in an article I posted in January.
Do it quick, before you forget where you put your spare mouse.
Tomorrow: use Gmail as a network drive.
The first application I open and the last one I close each workday is Gmail.
Even though I use the service's labels and filters to sort my mail, I often found myself scrolling through the 600-plus messages in my Gmail in-box to find the one I need.
Then I discovered Gmail's search operators, and my scrolling days were over.
For instance, when I need to find the message from Ellen with the agenda attached, I type from:ellen filename:doc. If I need to find the message I sent my brother Larry about the NCAA basketball tournament pool we entered, I type to:larry subject:ncaa. And to locate the e-mail from one of my editors (for whom I've created a label) about my blog posts for the last two months, I enter label:editor (february OR march).
You'll find some of these same search parameters when you click "Show search options" to the right of the Gmail search box, but operators are faster, plus they give you more flexibility. For example, you can use the date range drop-down menu in the Search options box, or just enter after:2008/04/04 before:2008/04/07 to search mail that arrived last weekend.
Gmail's Search options box provides options for narrowing your e-mail searches, but they're not as fast as using the service's search operators.
(Credit: Google)
Get your Gmail work done faster via keyboard shortcuts
I'm a keyboard shortcut fan from way back, so it's embarrassing to admit that I didn't realize I could use the time-saving wonders in Gmail until I had been using the service for more than a year. To activate the shortcuts, click Settings and select "Keyboard shortcuts on" under the General tab.
Now when you want to compose a new message, type C, or Shift-C to open a blank message in a new window. Type a slash (/) to put the cursor in the search field, # to move the selected message to the Trash folder, ! to report it as spam, K to select the previous message in your in-box, and J to move to the next one.
When you're in "Conversation" mode, type R to reply to the selected message (Shift-R opens a new window for the reply), A to reply to all, and F to forward the message. Remembering these options can be a challenge, so type ? to view a list of keyboard shortcut options (and Esc to close the list).
Tomorrow: Get more out of Mozilla Thunderbird's search options.
I'm a big fan of using keyboard shortcuts to get more work done in less time. But there are only so many Ctrl and Alt key combinations available for creating your own shortcuts. Also, the ones I don't use regularly are difficult to remember without using a cheat sheet, and the time spent looking up the ones I can't remember on my own negates the productivity boost I'm shooting for.
That's why I find myself relying increasingly on Windows' Run dialog and command line to open programs. Vista puts a pseudo-command line one click away: just press the Windows key and start typing the name to locate an application or file you need. When you see it in the list that pops up, use the down arrow key to navigate to it (though it's usually the first--or only--option), and press Enter to get it started. In XP you can press the Windows key and then R to open the Run dialog box, and then type the name of the program's executable file and press Enter. To open a Command Prompt in either Windows version, type cmd and press Enter.
The Clavier+ donationware utility lets you create a keyboard shortcut to Windows' Command Prompt.
I saved myself a few keystrokes by installing a donationware utility that I used to assign a keyboard shortcut to the Command Prompt. Start by downloading and installing Clavier+, a keyboard-shortcut utility from Guillaume Ryder. Open the program, click the blue plus sign on the left side of the main screen, and navigate to Accessories>Command Prompt. Click in the Shortcut field, and press your preferred keystroke combination, making sure not to enter one you already use for some other purpose. (One that is available and easy for me to remember is Ctrl+Alt+C.) After you make your selection, click OK, and you'll see your new shortcut in the list at the top of the main Clavier+ window. Click OK once more to close the program, and now you've got access to the Command Prompt via the keyboard.
Assign the keystroke combination of your choice in Clavier+'s Shortcut dialog box.
You may be wondering why you can't simply right-click cmd.exe in Windows Explorer (it's in the C:/Windows/System32 folder), choose Create Shortcut, and then assign a keystroke combination to that shortcut by right-clicking it, choosing Properties>Shortcut, and entering the keys in the Shortcut key field. Windows won't let you. I don't know why, and I can't even find an explanation for the restriction. No matter what key combination I entered, I couldn't get it to open the Command Prompt window. For some reason, Clavier+ had no problem opening the window via the keystroke combo I assigned. Go figure.
Launch apps from the command line
With the Command Prompt open, type start winword and press Enter to open Microsoft Word, start excel to launch Excel, and start mplayer2 to open the old version of Windows Media Player (start wmplayer launches the newer release). Here are some other application file names you might find handy:
Internet Explorer: iexplore
Microsoft Outlook: outlook
Microsoft PowerPoint: powerpnt
Windows Explorer: explorer (or press the Windows key and E to open an Explorer window with My Computer highlighted)
Calculator: calc
Magnifier: magnify
Notepad: notepad
Paint: mspaint
Registry Editor: regedit
System Configuration Utility: msconfig
Tweak UI: tweakui
Windows Movie Maker: moviemk
WordPad: write
Most other applications can be launched simply by typing start and their name, such as "firefox", "thunderbird", "photoshop", "acrobat", and "itunes". To close the Command Prompt window, type exit and press Enter.
Of course, you can do much more from the command line than launch applications. The Microsoft TechNet site lists the commands available for system-management tasks, with descriptions of how to use them. But that's a subject for a future post.
Tomorrow: Fun with Microsoft Excel's Lookup function.
I can live without Microsoft Word, and I'm confident I could manage well enough if you removed Excel from my PC. Even my favorite e-mail app is a nonessential.
But take away my browser, and I might as well not even start up my PC.
Mozilla Firefox is the first program I open and the last one I close each workday (or worknight, as the case may be). I found some great time-savers for the program. And since many of you prefer Internet Explorer, I've got some productivity-enhancing keyboard shortcuts for both browsers.
Reset Firefox's Javascript options
Many of the Web's best features are powered by Javascript, but like every technology, it can be a real troublemaker in the wrong hands. Firefox gives you some control over how much power Javascripts have when you activate them. Click Tools*Options*Content, and choose the Advanced button next to Enable JavaScript. If you're using Firefox 1.5, the options checked by default are "Move or resize existing windows," "Raise or lower windows," and "Disable or replace context menus." The first allows Javascripts to change the size or position of the current window. The second lets a script place a window above or below the current window. The third makes it possible for a script to disable or change your right-click (context) menus.
In Firefox 2.0, only the first and third of these options is checked by default. The last two options in this dialog box let Javascripts hide the status bar at the bottom of the browser window, or change its text to allow scrolling-text messages. I leave options 1 and 3 checked, but you may want to give Javascripts more or less control.
Change how much control Javascripts have in the Firefox browser.
Get more control Over Javascripts
You can disable other Javascript window features by using Firefox's about:config settings. To access them, type about:config in the address field and press Enter. To ensure that all pop-up windows are resizable, scroll to dom.disable_window_open_feature.resizable and double-click it to set it to "true." To allow all pop-ups to be minimized, double-click dom.disable_window_open_feature.minimizable. Do the same to dom.disable_window_open_feature.menubar to keep menus visible in pop-ups. To keep the navigation toolbar showing, double-click dom.disable_window_open_feature.location. And to retain scrollbars on pop-ups, double-click dom.disable_window_open_feature.scrollbars to reset this option to true.
Get more control over Javascripts in Firefox by changing these options in about:config.
Time-saving keyboard shortcuts for Internet Explorer, Firefox
Bookmark the current page by pressing Ctrl-D and then Enter.
Open your bookmarks in Firefox by pressing Ctrl-B; open IE's Favorites by pressing Ctrl-I.
Open a new tab by pressing Ctrl-T. Move to the next tab by pressing Ctrl-Tab. If you have lots of tabs open, move between them quickly by pressing Ctrl and the numbers 1 through 9, based on their order in the toolbar.
To close a tab, press Ctrl-W. To close a window, press Ctrl-Shift-W.
Increase the size of the page's font by pressing Ctrl-+; decrease it by pressing Ctrl-- (the hyphen or minus sign).
View the page without the browser border by pressing F11. Press it again to revert to the standard browser view.
Press F5 (or Ctrl-R) to reload the current page, and Ctrl-F5 (or Ctrl-Shift-R) to reload it ignoring the cache.
Press the Backspace key to reload the previous page, or Shift-Backspace to go forward one page.
Press Alt-D to highlight the text in the address box.
Finally, press Ctrl-K in Firefox, or Ctrl-E in IE, to move the cursor to the search box.
Wednesday: A free Firefox add-on that lets you browse text-only, minus images, Javascript, and CSS.
Last week I described the PureText utility that lets you paste plain text in Word and other applications via a keyboard shortcut. You can create a macro to get the same functionality in Word and Excel, without having to download anything.
(Note that the original post of this tip reported that PureText required that you click its icon in your system tray before you press the shortcut keys to paste plain text. This is true only if you open the destination app after the material you want to paste has been added to the clipboard. If both the source and destination programs are open when you initially copy the text, you need only press PureText's shortcut key to paste the text without images, formatting, and other non-text elements. my thanks to the reader below for pointing out this error.)
Paste plain text in Word via the keyboard
In Word 2003, click Tools*Macro*Macros. In Word 2007, click View*Macros. In both versions, type PlainPaste in the Macro name field (you can name it anything you like, but the name must begin with a letter, have no spaces, and use no punctuation), and choose Create. Place the cursor at the beginning of the line just above "End Sub" and type Selection.PasteSpecial DataType:=wdPasteText. The only space in the line is between "PasteSpecial" and "Datatype:". Press Ctrl-s to save the macro, and click File*Close and Return to Microsoft Word.
Type this text in the penultimate line of your macro to paste plain text.
Now test the macro: Select a mix of text and other elements in your browser or some other application, press Ctrl-c to place it on the clipboard, return to Word, click Tools*Macro*Macros in Word 2003, or View*Macros in Word 2007, select PlainPaste in the list of Macros, and click Run. Only the text should appear, in the format of the document, not of the source.
Next, assign a keyboard shortcut to the macro: In Word 2003, click Tools*Customize*Commands, make sure Normal.dot is selected in the "Save in" drop-down menu, and click the Keyboard button. Scroll down the Categories list in the top left and select Macros. Choose PlainPaste (or whatever you named the macro) in the right pane, click in the "Press new shortcut key" box, type Ctrl-t (or the unused key combination of your choice, beginning with Ctrl, Alt, and/or Shift), select Assign and then Close twice.
To assign the keyboard shortcut in Word 2007, click the Office button in the top-left corner, choose Word Options at the bottom of the window, click Customize in the left pane, and then the Customize button to the right of "Keyboard shortcuts" at the bottom of the Word Options dialog box. Scroll to and select Macros in the Categories window, select the PlainPaste macro in the window to the right, click in the "Create new keyboard shortcut" field, type Ctrl-t (or your choice of combination, beginning with Ctrl, Alt, and/or Shift), click Assign, then Close, and finally OK.
Set a keyboard shortcut for your plain-paste macro in Word.
Give Excel a plain-paste keyboard shortcut
Here's the fastest way I know of to create a plain-paste keyboard shortcut in Microsoft Excel: First, select any text and press Ctrl-c to place it in the clipboard. In Excel 2003, click Tools*Macro*Record New Macro. In Excel 2007, click View*Macros*Record Macro. Enter a name in the "Macro name" field, beginning with a character, and without any spaces or punctuation. Click in the "Shortcut key" box, type t (or the letter of your choice, as long as it isn't already assigned to a shortcut that begins with Ctrl), and press OK. In Excel 2003, click Edit*Paste Special*Text*OK, and press the Stop Recording button on the tiny toolbar that popped up when you closed the Record Macro dialog box. In Excel 2007, click Home*Paste*Paste Special*Text*OK*View*Stop Recording.
When you close Excel, you'll be asked if you want to save the changes in the Personal Macro Workbook. Click Yes to make the shortcut available when you reopen the application.
Tomorrow: The (selective) return of smart quotes in Microsoft Word.
Mice, bah!
Every time you lift your hands off the keyboard to select something with your mouse, you're lengthening your workday. I don't need any double-blind studies to convince me that keyboard shortcuts save time: I experience it first-hand whenever I learn a new key combination that accomplishes some task that I thought required a mouse click. Or two. Or three.
Here are some of my favorite multi-keystroke time-savers.
Keystrokes for Working in Windows
I wish I had a nickel for every time I clicked the little folder icon in the Quick Launch toolbar to open the My Documents folder in Windows Explorer. Even worse, since I don't store my documents in My Documents (too obvious), I had to navigate manually to whatever folder I was aiming for. The icon is gathering dust since I found out you can open Explorer to My Computer (Computer in Vista) by pressing the Windows key and E.
Another frequently clicked Quick Launch icon is the one that shows your desktop. Get there without any clicks by pressing the Windows key and D. Then press the Tab key to move to the Start button (which you can also open simply by pressing the Windows key alone). Tab again to highlight the first shortcut in the Quick Launch toolbar (hit the right-arrow key to move to the next shortcuts in succession), press it once more to highlight your first open app in the toolbar, and on and on, all the way to your system-tray icons. And here's an even-shorter shortcut: Get to the system tray in a jiffy by pressing the Windows key and B. (Sorry, XP users, this one appears to work only in Vista.)
Gotcha Alert
I found a glitch with this method of tooling around your desktop: I like an unobstructed view, so I got rid of the icons cluttering up my desktop by right-clicking it, choosing View, and unchecking Show Desktop Icons. Then I right-clicked in the toolbar and chose Toolbars*Desktop) to put the shortcuts there. To make room on the toolbar for my open-app shortcuts, I slid the Desktop toolbar to the right until only the word "Desktop" and the double-chevron show. This is a great way to maximize use of the toolbar, but when you tab to this shortcut, it pops up the list of desktop items automatically, requiring you to press Esc to close the menu before you can tab again to your system-tray icons.
Vista's Best New Feature: The Start Search Box
I am no fan of Microsoft's new operating system, but I have to admit I've come to rely on the Start Search text box to open programs, Windows utilities, even my oft-accessed files. Just press the Windows key and start typing the name of whatever it is you're looking for: Word to open that app, Device Manager to get a look at the status of your hardware, even the names of your IE shortcuts or Firefox bookmarks. You may have to press Tab and then the down arrow a couple of times to select the file or resource you want, but it's still faster than navigating in Explorer or the Start menu to open an application or file.
Okay, one more trick with the Windows key: Press it along with L to lock down your PC.
More Not-So-Stupid Keyboard Tricks
I don't have to tell you about Ctrl-X (cuts the selection), Ctrl-C (copies the selection), Ctrl-V (pastes the selection), Ctrl-A (selects the entire document), Ctrl-Z (undoes the last action), or Ctrl-S (saves the file currently open), but I just did anyway. Here are some other key-combination chestnuts that you may have forgotten, or missed hearing about:
Alt-F4 (or Alt-spacebar and then C) closes the open window.
Alt-Enter opens the Properties dialog box of the item selected.
Press Shift as you insert a CD or DVD to keep it from playing automatically.
And last but not least, Shift-F10 opens the right-click menu of the item selected.
For a more extensive list of keyboard shortcuts for Windows and applications, just visit your favorite search engine and enter keyboard shortcuts.
Tomorrow: A freebie that's guaranteed to clear the cobwebs out of any version of Windows.
"If you want something done right, do it yourself."
"Why reinvent the wheel?"
That sums up a conversation I had with a coworker after I told him about the macro I created in Microsoft Word that converts my Ctrl-V keyboard shortcut into one that pastes text from a Web site, some other app, or elsewhere, minus the formatting, images, and any other nontext stuff. The fact is, I rarely want to paste anything but the text, and I want it in the format of the file it's being added to, not the format of the source.
I thought this handy-dandy trick was a first-rate time-saver, especially when you consider that for those rare instances when I want to preserve the formatting of the source, or to include elements other than text, I simply press Shift-Insert.
My buddy said he could do me one better: He presses the Windows key and V to paste plain text he has copied from just about anywhere, into just about any application, not just Word. And he didn't have to go through a multistep process to create a Word macro. All he did was download Steve Miller's free PureText utility.
The PureText freebie from Steve Miller makes pasting plain text a breeze.
After you download the program, it puts an icon in your system tray. Then you just copy the text you want, click the icon before you press Windows-V to paste it without the formatting, or anything else except the text. You can choose another key combination as long as one of the keys is either the Shift, Ctrl, or the Windows key, but I stick with the default keys because they avoid conflicts with other shortcuts. Speaking of which....
Tomorrow: I'll give you a list of the most useful keyboard shortcuts you probably don't know about.
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