There used to be a time where you either had a mouse or your were totally lost. Then there came the time of simple keyboard shortcuts like ctr+c. Nowadays each application, desktop or web, has its own set of key combinations, and the fault is not yours if you don’t know all these.

There are a number shortcuts which are common to all, or at least a great number of applications, like copying, closing, and so on. This may be common knowledge to many of you, but perhaps you’ll find something new nevertheless, so take a peek after the fold!

Keep in mind that these combinations will probably work in all the apps you use (Outlook, Word, Photoshop, Adobe Buzzword, Pidgin, etc), so don’t be afraid to try them out.

Copy pasting is probably the most used shortcut and you actually have many options here. First you need to copy stuff, which you can do with either Ctr+C or Ctr+Ins. Then, when pasting, you can use Ctr+V or Shift+Ins.  I use the latter for both because my right hand naturally assumes the position for both and I can press the two very quickly. If you want to cut the selected text or area, press Ctr+X instead and you’re done. One more note, it’s rare, but in some cases Ctr+Ins won’t work while Ctr+c will.

In browsers there are some common shortcuts which as far as I could tell were quite uniform cross the board. My board consists of Opera, IE and Firefox, so if you use other browsers these may not all work, but give it a go!. Ctr+T is quite usual for opening up new tabs, while Ctr+N opens a new window. Ctr+N usually controlls the “new” option in every app, in Photoshop it opens a new document for example. Ctr+D can be used to bookmark a page while Ctr+R can usually be used to reload it. Aside from Ctr+R, F5 is a common shortcut for reloading or refreshing anything. If you want to find some text on a page, or search in an application in general Ctr+F should do the trick, although in Windows F3 brings out a search dialog. In Windows it refreshes the view, in browsers it reloads the page, in an FTP app it refreshes the view and so on. Ctr+O will open the “open file” dialog while Ctr+S will open the “save file” dialog.

Undoing and redoing is very common in many apps, you can use Ctr+Z and Ctr+Y for undo and redo respectively. In some apps this is  bit more complicated, for example in Photoshop redo is Ctr+Shift+Ym but the pattern is still the same.

Finally, if you are in a text editor like Word, or in a rich text editor in a browser (like if you’re writing a Wordpress post) you can use Ctr+I for italics, Ctr+B for bold and pressing Ctr+1 through Ctr+7 usually enables you to switch quikcly between headings. A very handy shortcut is Ctr+A which is used to select everything, or as it’s usually found in apps, “select all”. I frequently use this in all text editors and in Photoshop.

That’s about it, if you have anything very common to add please do so in the comments, if I agree with you I’ll add them to the post.