Speed up your writing! This came up in a thread about typing and, trust me folks, your keyboard is way more useful than you think it is!

If you learn the functions for word-processing then you can stop using your mouse when you write. It’s faster to navigate with keys.

The buttons in the red area of this full-sized keyboard—above the arrow keys—are crazy helpful, especially HOME and END. Smaller keyboards (like on a laptop), often have the same functionality hidden in arrow keys when you use them while holding Fn (Function). Here’s a primer:

• HOME goes to the start of a row of text. END goes to … the end

• CTRL multiplies the effect. CTRL+HOME goes to the start of the page. CTRL+HOME goes to the end of the page.

• Adding Shift will highlight everything between. So SHIFT+HOME will highlight the entire row from the start to where you have selected. SHIFT+END will do the same, but to the end.

• Add CTRL to that combo and you select the whole page, etc.

You probably know that the arrow keys move the cursor one character or one line at a time. But what if you add CTRL and SHIFT?

• CTRL+LEFT/RIGHT will move the cursor one word at a time. It’s fast & precise.

• Add SHIFT and you can select that entire word (or multiple words, if you hit the arrow a few times). It’s most helpful to delete a word you just misspelled. It can become second-nature to just hit CTRL+SHIFT+LEFT and then delete/backspace instead of slamming backspace a bunch of times or reaching for the mouse. Faster too. (Edit: Mirv has just told me you can also just Ctrl+Backspace 🤯)

• CTRL+UP/DOWN will in turn make the cursor jump one paragraph at a time, instead of one line! As always, add SHIFT to highlight while you do it.

Remember: CONTROL always multiplies whatever you’re doing (move a word instead of a character, go to the to start of the page instead of the start of the row) and SHIFT always selects. SHIFT is the keyboard equivalent here of clicking and dragging!

This is also super helpful for other applications, like spreadsheets or coding.

Again: you don’t need a full keyboard to do this! After a little while of getting used to it, I can do it just as fast on my laptop (adding in Fn) as I can on my big keyboard.

Anyway, share the word! Tell people about this! They’re lives will be better! I’ve earned many friends in many offices by showing people how to do this.

( Benjamin Davis ; tagging you here since I can’t share the image in a comment. )