Workers' Edge

I'll save us both some time by getting right to the descriptions of three Firefox add-ons that shave minutes off my workday. Hey, they add up!

Navigate Web pages using only your keyboard.
When it comes to speed, I'll take a keyboard over a mouse any day of the week. A post from April 2008 explains how to create a keyboard-shortcut list you can access quickly. I also wrote about using your keyboard to move and resize windows and shortcuts for Word and Excel.

Now I can park the mouse when I surf. Instead of clicking, I enter the number Rudolf Noe's Mouseless Browsing add-on places next to each link. If I want to put the cursor in the address bar, I enter 0, while pressing 00 puts the cursor in the search field. Each open tab gets a number, each text box on the page gets a number, each drop-down menu gets a number. (I just wish the bookmark toolbar options and the reload, stop, and home buttons did.)

The Mouseless Browsing Firefox add-on assigns a number to each link and option on a Web page so you get there from the keyboard.

(Credit: Rudolf Noe)

The program is loaded with options, including the ability to use only the numeric keypad to enter the numbers, so the top-row number keys aren't used to enter shortcuts. You can also require pressing the Enter key before the action occurs or change the delay between entering the numbers and taking the action.

Granted, the numbers can play havoc with a page's layout, but I can't count the number of times I've struggled to get the mouse pointer over just the right tiny link in a sea of tiny links. Being able to enter a number instead of clicking is a joy for this keyboard aficionado. (Warning: the add-on also slows your page-load speeds a bit.)

Finally! Copy Web text without the formatting.
I know how to create a keyboard shortcut that pastes plain text, but I didn't have the ability to copy and paste text from Web pages without the formatting until I downloaded Jeremy Gillick's aptly named Copy Plain Text add-on for Firefox. Just download the extension, restart Firefox, and when you copy text from a page, you'll see a Copy as Plain Text option just under the Edit menu's regular Copy option.

Copy Plain Text lets you do just that from Web pages in Firefox.

(Credit: Jeremy Gillick)

You also get the Ctrl-Shift-C keyboard shortcut to copy the text without formatting. You can say what you want about one-trick ponies, but I only wish all software was this straightforward. Of course, Firefox could have this feature built in, but I'm not complaining.

The latest scores are a right-click away.
OK, I admit it. If I'm working late and missing a big game, I visit a sports site to check the scores. Now I save myself time by right-clicking Vinny 2020's SportsFox add-on, choose the sport, and see that yes, the Tigers dropped another one to the Bosox, and even worse, the Red Wings lost their second game of the Stanley Cup finals the the Penguins. (Might as well keep on working.)

Get up-to-the-minute sports scores inside your browser with the SportsFox add-on.

(Credit: Vinny 2020)

Now I'm going to enjoy some of the time these add-ons have saved me. Go Wings!

If you're familiar with keyboard shortcuts, you probably know that you can cycle through your open windows by pressing Alt-Tab. But you may not know that pressing Alt-Esc moves between your open windows in the order they were opened.

There are simply too many useful key combinations to remember, which is why I described how to create a keyboard-shortcut cheat sheet last April. Then a couple of months later I added key combinations for moving and resizing windows.

My shortcuts.txt file is getting overloaded, but it doesn't include any of the handy keystroke combos available in Word and Excel. That's why I created separate text files I refer to when I'm working in one of those two programs.

Start by browsing Microsoft's list of keyboard shortcuts for Word. Select the shortcuts, press Ctrl-C to copy the text, open Notepad or any text editor, press Ctrl-V to paste the list into a new file, and save the file with the .txt extension. (I call mine wordshortcuts.txt.)

To create a similar shortcut-reference list for Excel, go to Microsoft's compilation of Excel shortcut and function keys. Follow the instructions above to select, copy, and paste the shortcuts into a new file you save with the .txt extension.

Now get into the habit of opening your shortcut file each time you start working in Word or Excel. I keep my shortcut list in a small window I can Alt-Tab (or Alt-Esc) to when I want to refresh my memory. These shortcuts have really come in handy with the 2007 versions of Word and Excel. It's usually faster to scroll through my shortcut list to find the operation I need than it is to search through the tabs on the Office 2007 ribbon.

Referring to the shortcuts list is often faster than navigating Office 2007's ribbon interface.

(Credit: Microsoft)

(Note that you can view the keystroke equivalents of many ribbon and menu options by pressing and holding the Alt key. You'll also find some key-combo references in the Excel and Word help systems, but I prefer to use the straight-ahead lists available on the two Microsoft sites I link to above.)

These shortcut lists may be overkill for people whose use of keystroke combos doesn't venture much further than Ctrl-A (select all), Ctrl-C (copy), Ctrl-V (paste), and Ctrl-P (print). Here are a handful of my favorite little-known keyboard shortcuts for Word and Excel:

• Print preview: Ctrl-F2 (also Ctrl-Alt-I in Word)
• Add hyperlink: Ctrl-K
• Increase font size one point in Word: Ctrl-[
• Decrease font size one point in Word: Ctrl-]
• Open the Format dialog box with Font tab selected: Ctrl-Shift-F (also Ctrl-D in Word)
• Open the dictionary (Word 2003) or the reference pane (Word 2007): Alt-Shift-F7
• Select a row in Excel: Shift-Spacebar
• Select a column in Excel: Ctrl-Spacebar
• Add a line to the current cell in Excel: Alt-Enter

A couple of weeks ago, I described how to disable the feature in Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007 that automatically completes addresses as you enter them in the To:, Cc:, or Bcc: fields.

As I stated then, I've come to depend on Outlook's address-autocomplete feature, though it's far from perfect. First, editing the list isn't easy. You can delete an entry you no longer need by pressing Delete after you scroll to the address in the drop-down list that appears as you type the name in one of the above fields. But there's no simple way to edit the list.

Sure, you can use the free NK2View utility from NirSoft to import and export address books, as described by the How-To Geek, but there's nothing quick or simple about the process.

What I really want is the ability to restrict the addresses that appear in the list as I enter them. For example, an Autocomplete Settings dialog box would let me limit the list to addresses I've entered at least twice (or three times, or five times, or any number I choose) to eliminate the one-offs (or three-offs, etc.)

An even simpler request to Microsoft's developers would be to let me restrict autocomplete suggestions to addresses that appear in my contacts. And while I have my wish list out, how about making it easier to sync contacts between Gmail and Outlook?

One way to cut through Outlook's autocomplete clutter is to use the Ctrl-K keyboard shortcut to access the program's Check Names feature. Simply type the first few letters of the address you want to enter, and press Ctrl-K.

If only one address in your contacts matches the letters, that address will be entered into the field automatically. If more than one address match the letters, the Check Names dialog box will open (see below). Scroll to an address, and press Enter to place it into the address field of your message.

Press Ctrl-K to open Outlook's Check Names dialog box to a specific initial letter.

(Credit: Microsoft)

The clean-slate approach to Outlook's autocomplete feature
If your nickname file gets out of hand, you can start from scratch by renaming the file, which will cause Outlook to create a new one the next time the program opens. Start by finding the .nk2 file. In XP, the default location for this file is here:

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

In Vista, the file is placed in this folder by default:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook

If you don't find the file in either of these locations, make sure that your system is set to view hidden system files. To do so in Windows Explorer, click Tools > Folder Options > View and select "Show hidden files and folders" in the "Advanced settings" window. (If you don't see the Tools option in Vista's Explorer, press the Alt key.)

Now simply rename the file. You could delete it, but I recommend keeping the original file around so that you can revert to it, should something go awry. A Microsoft Knowledge Base article provides complete instructions for resetting this Outlook feature.

What's the fastest way to shut down Windows?

With a mouse, it takes at least two clicks, plus the time required for the various menus to appear.

With a keyboard, you can shut down Windows XP by pressing the Windows key (or Ctrl-Esc) and typing U twice. In Vista, the shutdown keyboard sequence is Windows key, right arrow three times, Enter.

By default, Vista goes into sleep mode when you press the Windows key, then the right arrow, and then Enter to activate the Start menu's power button. You can change this behavior--letting you shut down with two fewer keystrokes--via Vista's Advanced Power Options.

Press the Windows key, type "power options," and press Enter. Click "Choose what the power buttons do" in the left pane, select "Shut down" in the drop-down menus next to "When I press the power button," and click Save Changes.

Change the behavior of the power button on Vista's Start menu via the Power Options System Settings dialog box.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Note that you can also access your power options by clicking "Change plan settings" underneath your current plan. Then click "Change advanced power settings," choose the plus sign next to "Power buttons and lid" (for notebooks, obviously), and then the plus sign next to "Power button action." Click the current setting to access a drop-down menu showing your other power options.

Vista offers another method of changing your Start menu's power button setting.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Even with the reconfigured Start menu power button, that's still too many keystrokes. The quickest Windows shutdown technique I know of is to create a shutdown shortcut and then assign the shortcut a keystroke combination. Start by right-clicking the desktop or any folder window, then choosing New > Shortcut. In the "Type the location of the item" text box, enter this line:
shutdown -s -t 0

Give the shortcut a name, and click Finish. Now navigate to the shortcut you just created, right-click it, choose Properties, and under the Shortcut key, click in the "Shortcut key" box. Type Ctrl-Alt-1, or the key combination of your choice, though I recommend starting it with Ctrl-Alt to avoid overwriting an existing shortcut. Finally, click OK. (You'll know in a minute why I selected Ctrl-Alt-1 for my shutdown shortcut.)

Now entering that keystroke combination will start Windows' shutdown program. You can create similar shortcuts/key combinations to restart Windows, log off the current user, hibernate (in XP), or sleep (in Vista.) Here are the commands to enter in the shortcut wizard's "Type the location of the item" text box for each action:

To restart: shutdown -r -t 0
To log off: shutdown -l -t 0
To hibernate XP: rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll, SetSuspendState Hibernate
To put Vista to sleep: %windir%\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState

You need the "-t 0" switch to start the shutdown or restart sequence immediately. Otherwise, Windows will wait 20 seconds before closing shop.

To make the shortcuts easier to remember, I assigned the shutdown shortcut the Ctrl-Alt-1 key combination, restart the Ctrl-Alt-2 sequence, log-off Ctrl-Alt-3, and hibernate or sleep Ctrl-Alt-4. This last one is less handy, since I can put Vista to sleep by pressing the Windows key, then the right arrow and Enter, so timewise, it's a wash.

Bonus tip: Bypass the Windows log-on screen
If you're the only person who uses your PC, and you're not worried about a stranger gaining access to the system simply by turning it on, you can start Windows without having to log on. In XP, click Start > Run. In Vista, press the Windows key. In both versions, type control userpasswords2, and press Enter. Uncheck "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer," and click OK.

You can use Microsoft Word for years and still find new ways to get more work done in less time. Here are a handful of fast-and-easy productivity boosters.

Create outlines out of lists
Word 2007 adds a handy outline list to the standard bullet and numbered lists available on Word 2003's Formatting toolbar (the Paragraphs section under the Home tab of Word 2007's ribbon). You can create an outline from an existing list in either version by placing the cursor in the line you want to indent (or outdent, as the case may be) and clicking the Increase Indent or Decrease Indent buttons just to the right.

Add a Save All option to Word 2007
Whenever I have Word open for more than a few minutes, the chances are good that I've got more than one file active. When quitting time rolls around, Word 2003 lets me save them all simultaneously by pressing the Shift key as I open the File menu, which converts the Save command into Save All.

To add this function to Word 2007, click the Office button, choose Word Options in the bottom-right corner, click Customize in the left pane, select Commands Not in the Ribbon under "Choose commands from," and make sure "Show Quick Access Toolbar below the Ribbon" is checked. Now scroll to and select Save All in the list of commands on the left side of the main window, and click Add and OK. The Save All icon will appear on the aforementioned toolbar.

Add a Save All icon to Microsoft Word 2007's Quick Access Toolbar.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Shift your paragraphs around
It's not unusual to need to rearrange the paragraphs in your document. Rather than the trial-and-error cut-and-paste method, you can move an entire paragraph up or down by pressing and holding the Shift and Alt keys and then the up or down arrows.

Apply formatting via keyboard shortcuts
I thought I knew all there is to know about pasting, but then I found out that you can copy and paste only the formatting of a selection, not the selection itself. To do so, select those items with formatting you want to copy, press Ctrl-Shift-C, choose the items you want to apply the formatting to, and press Ctrl-Shift-V.

Start where you left off
When you reopen a document in Word, the cursor appears at the very beginning. To jump to the place where the cursor was when you closed the file, just press Shift-F5.

Dragging a mouse to select text in Microsoft Word requires the precision of a diamond cutter, or seems to, anyway. I prefer to press the Ctrl, Shift, and arrow keys to make my text selections. Throw in a couple of function keys, and I can use my keyboard to select text faster than any mouser can.

To select a word at a time, press Ctrl-Shift and the left or right arrow key. Ctrl-Shift and the up and down arrow keys select a paragraph at a time. If you get tired of holding down the Shift key, simply press F8 to put Word into select mode. The Ctrl-arrow key operations still work, but you can also select the current word, sentence, paragraph, and section by pressing F8 repeatedly. As you might guess, pressing Shift and F8 deselects in the opposite order.

Select to the next occurrence of the word of your choice using function keys.

(Credit: Microsoft)

The real power of Word's select mode comes from combining it with the Find and Go To functions. Suppose you want to select from the cursor to the next occurrence of the word "wolverines." Simply press F8, F5, and Alt-D to open the Find and Replace dialog's Find tab. Type in the word you want to select to and press Alt-F (or Enter if the Find Next button is selected).

If you want to select to a specific page, heading, footnote, or other element, press Alt-G to highlight the Go To tab, select the element in the "Go to what" drop-down menu, enter the appropriate option in the text box to the right, and press Alt-T (or Enter if the Go To button is highlighted).

To exit select mode, just press the Esc key. It will also close when you cut, copy, or format the selection.

Here are a couple more helpful key combinations for selecting in Word:

Shift-Home/End selects to the beginning/end of the current line.
Ctrl-Shift-Home/End selects to the beginning/end of the document.
Shift-Page Up/Down selects one screen up or down.
Alt-Ctrl-Shift-Page Down selects to the end of the current window.
Ctrl-Shift-F8 and the arrow keys selects a rectangular block of text.

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.

There were some important shortcuts left off the list I described a couple of months ago. I wanted to be able to use my PC without requiring a mouse or any input device other than the keyboard. Since I can't remember all the shortcuts I might need, I listed them in a text file I can open in Notepad using just two easy-to-remember keyboard combinations.

Unfortunately, some very useful keyboard shortcuts were omitted from the initial list, including those that let you move and resize windows by pressing Alt-Spacebar-M and Alt-Spacebar-S, respectively. (Note that the Move and Size options are grayed out when the window is maximized. To set it to the "normal" view, press Alt-Spacebar-R.)

Access controls for moving and resizing windows by pressing Alt-Spacebar.

(Credit: Microsoft)

The Move command places a four-arrow icon on the screen. Press the arrow keys to reposition the window, and press Enter when it's in place to return to the normal view. The Size option uses the same icon, but the arrow keys move the top, bottom, left, or right side of the window. Once again, press Enter when you have the desired size to return the focus to your application.

If you want to move the top down and the bottom up, or the right side in and the left side out, you have press Enter and repeat the shortcut. Or use the Move command first to place one side where you want it and then the Size command to resize it.

Cursor control by the numbers
There's no substitute for a mouse's ability to move the pointer around the screen in any direction and as fast as your hand can drag it. Your keyboard does offer an alternative way to slide your mouse pointer across the screen. Press the left Shift key, the left Alt key, and the Num Lock key to open the Mouse Keys dialog box. Press Enter to activate the feature. Now move the pointer by pressing the numbers along the outside of your number keypad, and press the 5 key to click. Press the left Alt, left Shift, and Num Lock keys again to turn the feature off.

Activate Windows' Mouse Keys feature to convert your number pad into a mouse-pointer controller.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Tomorrow: Take a closer look at Vista's Ease of Access Center.

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.