Here are four Windows tips you may or may not know about. If the latter, you might find them handy:
Turn Any Text Into A Hyperlink
Hyperlinks turn text into a clickable link that then opens a specific website. To create a hyperlink you need to:
- Visit the site you want the link to lead to and copy the URL from the address bar
- Highlight the text you want to turn into a hyperlink and then press the CTRL + K keys
- This will open a dialogue box. Simply paste the URL you copied earlier into the dialogue box and hit Enter
If you followed the steps correctly, the text you highlighted should now be a clickable hyperlink. This works with most word processors and email clients, including Gmail.
(example: Gmail dialogue box)
Open A New Instance Of A Program With A Single Click
Some of you might not realize that the center mouse wheel (or scroll wheel) is clickable. One of the uses for clicking the scroll wheel is to quickly open a new instance of a running program.
Position your mouse cursor over the icon in the Taskbar for the running program, then click the scroll wheel and a new instance of that program will open. This works with browsers, email clients, and any program that allows multiple instances to run.
Launch Any Program From The Taskbar
If you’re anything like me you’ll have shortcuts to your most used programs pinned to the Taskbar. Normally, you’d simply click a program’s icon to launch it.
However, if your mouse isn’t working properly, or is unavailable, you can launch each program by pressing the Windows key plus the corresponding number – from left to right. So, if you want to launch the program associated with the first icon from the left, you’d press the Windows key + 1, and so on.
Quickly Minimize & Restore All Open Windows
If you have multiple windows open and want to access the desktop you can minimize all open windows by pressing the Windows key + D. To restore all open windows, press the Windows key + D again
Alternatively, to minimize all open windows, press the Windows key + M. To restore all open windows again, press the Windows key + Shift + M.
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That “Turn Any Text Into A Hyperlink” is a great tip Jim but it may well be worth mentioning that the CTRL+K combination is only for English language systems and that it may well not work on other languages. For example my hotkeys are CTRL+I
Thanks for pointing that out Alan, appreciated.