What's the Ctrl Key for Anyway?

Most of us are familiar with the Ctrl key, located at the bottom right and bottom left on our keyboards, because we either press it to restart (Ctrl+Alt+Del) our computers or press it to log on to a network (also Ctrl+Alt+Del). But this little used key has many uses that can make our lives much easier.

As lover of keyboard shortcuts, I'm going to post a few keyboard shortcuts that use the Ctrl key. Some will have generic use for all programs.

Ctrl + P Brings up the print dialog box. This is much faster than navigating to File>Print. As far as I know, all programs use this shortcut.

Ctrl + B / I Pressing this key combination bolds / Italicize the selected text (when in Excel or text editors), open the bookmark panel in firefox

Ctrl + U set bold for text when in editors, view source in Firefox.

Ctrl + E Focus on search

Ctrl + L In the Firefox browser, pressing this key combination will move the cursor to the Address Bar. In Internet Explorer you will be presented with a dialog box similar to the Address Bar where you can type a URL. Internet Explorer savvys can also use the IE shortcut Alt + D

Ctrl + D Bookmark a page

Ctrl + F Find (Work on most Windows and Linux programs). Firefox also have a quickfind key "/"

Ctrl + Enter Complete .com address

Ctrl + Shift + Enter Complete .org address