In my training practice one of the biggest complaints we get is our persistence in requiring our students to know their shortcuts and to practice in class using the keyboards. To become truly effective and productive in using any of the Microsoft Office Applications you must know the shortcuts.

You stop using the mouse and then go back to thekeyboard and keep typing. If you do this you will find that youare only 20% effective compared to somebody who uses thekeyboard only.

Why? Well, it is quite simple. All the time spentmoving from the mouse to the keyboard is lost time ornon-productive time, so people who use the shortcut keystrokesexclusively will often be five times more effective thensomebody who doesn't because they don't have that lost timemoving from the keyboard to the mouse and back again.

In some jobs, like call centres you will find that knowing yourshortcut keystrokes compared to not knowing them can mean thedifference between keeping your job or not. I have noticed inmany telecommunications call centres throughout Australia andoverseas they are now converting their systems to windows basedsoftware.

What they have also done in these jobs is set some keyperformance standards that are really quite amazing.

For exampleone telco I know of, in their faults departments, require thatall fault calls be actioned and concluded from the moment theytake the call to the finish of the call within 3 - 5 minutes.This is an awesome requirement and many of the call centre staffwho were not familiar with the shortcut keystrokes found theirjobs were in jeopardy simply because they couldn't get all thedata into the system within the allotted time frame.

Essentially it was found as I mentioned before that those people who werereliant on the mouse were only 20% as effective as those whoused the keyboard exclusively.

So ... What Shortcut Keystrokes Should I Know?

This is a challenging question as many of the commonapplications we use in today's market place have differentshortcut keystrokes. One thing I have learnt since my wife wonan Apple computer is that many of the shortcut keystrokes we usein windows don't correlate to other operating systems, but alsoin the same breath. Many Do!

Some of the most common keystrokes we do have in MicrosoftOffice are these -

[Ctrl] + [N] - New Document [Ctrl] + [O] - Open Document [Ctrl]+ [P] - Print Document [Ctrl] + [S] - Save Document

[F7] - Spell Check [Ctrl] + [X] - Cut [Ctrl] + [C] - Copy [Ctrl]+ [V] - Paste

[Ctrl] + [F] - Find [Ctrl] + [H] - Replace

[Ctrl] + [K] - Insert Hyperlink

What you will find is that the shortcuts I presented are themost common ones are the same regardless of which MicrosoftOffice Application you are working with.

One of the other things you will notice is that in many of theMicrosoft Office Applications some of the shortcut keystrokesare similar.

For example in Microsoft Word to get to the start of the lineyou can press the [Home] key, to get to the end of the line youpress the [End] Key. In Microsoft Excel to get to the start ofthe row you press the [Home] Key, to get to the end of your datayou simply press the [End] Key.

There are even similarities withother Microsoft Office Applications like Microsoft Access. In atable in Microsoft Access, to get to the first field of a recordyou press the [Home] key and to get to the end of the record youpress the [End] key.

These similar shortcut keystrokes also apply in othernon-Microsoft office Applications. For example if you arewriting an email in Microsoft Outlook Express. You can get tothe start of the line by choosing the [Home] key and you can getto the end of the line by using the [End]

The really cool part about many of the applications that run onMicrosoft Windows is that the software development guru's havemaintained which shortcuts are used to do certain functionswhich means we users have a much easier time of it, learning theshortcut keystrokes.

Some of the more common shortcuts for moving the Insertion Pointin Microsoft Office are -

[Home] - Moves to the start of the line

[End] - Moves to the endof the line

[Ctrl] + [Home] - Moves to the First Character firstline of the document

[Ctrl] + [End] - Moves to the LastCharacter last line of the document

[Ctrl] + [Left Arrow] -Moves one word to the left

[Ctrl] + [Right Arrow] - Moves oneword to the right

[Page Up] - Move up by one screen

[Page Down]- Move down by one screen

Learning the shortcut keystrokes for the Microsoft OfficeApplication Suite should be mandatory for any computer trainingcourse. If you don't know these keystrokes you will never be aseffective as someone who has.

Often when you go to jobinterviews or to recruitment agencies they will test you to seeif you know these using systems like those from Self-TestSoftware. Many a time, I have heard stories where people havemissed out on job opportunities simply because they were tooslow during testing at the recruitment agencies.

The bottom line is this, if you want to be more effective inusing the computer you must learn your shortcuts. If you knowthem, passing certification exams like the Microsoft OfficeSpecialist program will be much easier as well.

Chris Le Roy is the Managing Director of One-on-One PersonalComputer Training in Townsville Australia. He has written anumber of Cheat Sheets that are available from his website tohelp you in learning your shortcut keystrokes. You can accessthese cheat sheets by visiting his website - http://www.1-on-1.biz .

He also has a daily Microsoft officeHints and Tips list which you can subscribe to by visiting - http://www.1-on-1.biz/