I’m writing this because I see so many people who use computers regularly who don’t know these basic keyboard shortcuts. They’re easy – learn them and your computer life will be much better. Most work on pretty much any GUI (Windows, Unix, even Mac substituting the CMD key for the CTRL key).
So with no further ado (hold down the CTRL key while typing the key that follows it, kind of like the SHIFT key):
- CTRL-C = copy the selected text
- CTRL-V = paste the prior copied text
- CTRL-X = copy the selected text and then delete it
- CTRL-Z = undo the last change
There are quite a few more worth learning, but some aren’t as guaranteed to work (for instance CTRL-SHIFT-Z which does a “redo” of the last “undo”). However, if you simply learn the 4 above your work will be remarkably improved in terms of streamlining.
As a final note, these DO NOT work in Unix command line (shell) windows. In fact you’ll get completely different and potentially ugly behavior. They will however work in the Unix GUI (X Windows and/or browser windows etc.).
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