MISC. ARTICLES

Open Your Favorite Programs Easily

Did you know that you can access all your favorite programs without ever touching the mouse? Yes, it's true. You can setup keyboard shortcuts for all of your most frequently used programs by following these simple steps:

1. Find the shortcut for the program that you'd like to open using your keyboard. Now right-click the shortcut and choose Properties from the menu.
   
   
2. Inside the properties screen will be a form field called "Shortcut Key". Right now the properties of this field are probably set to None. Click into this field with your mouse, then Press the Ctrl key on the your keyboard, along with the letter you'd like to use to start the application.
   
   For example, if I wanted to Open Microsoft Outlook with my keyboard, I'd go to the properties for my Outlook shortcut, click into the Shortcut Key section and press the Ctrl key + the O (oh) key at the same time.
   
   You can use just about any letter you want. Just make sure the letter you choose is something you'll remember easily.
   
   Once you've pressed Ctrl and your desired letter, the form field will change from None to Ctrl + Alt + the letter you chose.
   
   
3. Press OK on the properties screen and then use the keyboard shortcut you just created to launch the program with your keyboard. So in the above example, you'd press the Ctrl key plus the Alt key + letter O and Outlook should open right up for you.