Moving your hand between the keyboard and mouse gets tiresome when you have to do it every few seconds. Thankfully when working with computer bound apps, there are plenty of hotkeys or keyboard shortcuts built in. The trouble with getting used to hotkeys – you begin to wish they were everywhere including web based apps. Which is why I really appreciate them when writing a blog because they help me focus. The longer I keep my hands on the keyboard busily typing away, the faster and more often I write. That’s a good thing when you’re working hard to push out posts regularly.
Even if you aren’t the keyboard shortcut type by nature, give it a go just on WordPress and see if it improves your blogging speed. It might be clumsy at first trying to remember them but use them often enough, it becomes a habit you don’t hardly notice you’re using them. Here goes.
- Ctrl+A – Select All
- Ctrl+B – Bold
- Ctrl+C – Copy
- Ctrl+I – Italics
- Ctrl+U – Underline
- Ctrl+V – Paste
- Ctrl+Y – Redo
- Ctrl+Z – Undo
- Shift+End – Select text from cursor to end of line
- Shift+Home – Select text from cursor to beginning of line
- Shift+Left – Selects text to the left side of the cursor
- Shift+Right – Selects text to the right side of the cursor
- Shift+Ctrl+Right / Shift+Ctrl+Left – Selects a word
- Alt+Shift+A – Insert link
- Alt+Shift+U – Unordered list
- Alt+Shift+O – Ordered list
- Alt+Shift+Q – Block quote
- Alt+Shift+M – Insert media
- Alt+Shift+S – Remove link
- Alt+Shift+N – Spell check
- Alt+Shift+L – Align left
- Alt+Shift+R – Align right
- Alt+Shift+C – Align center
- Alt+Shift+J – Justify
- Alt+Shift+D – Strikethrough
- Alt+Shift+E – Switch editor mode
- Alt+Shift+T – Insert more tag
- Alt+Shift+G – Toggle full screen mode
Can’t remember all this? Try… Alt+Shift+H to bring up the help. It’ll show you a bunch of hotkeys you can use most of which are listed here.
One last one for you hotkey power users. You know how you Ctrl+S or Cmd+S for everything to save it? Well, very often you do that in a browser and it tries to save the web page. Apparently the Ctrl-S plugin for WordPress will let you save the post when you hit Ctrl+S or Cmd+S. Brilliant! I’m going to have it installed an take it for a whirl right now.
Keyboard photo courtesy of padsbrother