Getting  Along With Your Computer Column Archive

Back To Basics

By Cate Eales
Appeared May 24, 2007 on castanet.net

We've talked about advanced tips, shortcuts, workarounds and fixes here for almost two years. But every so often it's good to get back to basics. Here are a few basic Windows-related skills that will always come in handy, I promise!


Copy and Paste
You can copy some text from somewhere and paste it somewhere else.

"Why on earth would I need to do that?" you ask. Well, if you find a website you like and you want to tell a friend, you can place your cursor in the address bar of the browser, highlight the address, copy it, and paste it into an email.

Or maybe you're editing your church or service club newsletter, and you want to add an item that someone gave you without having to retype the whole thing. Open up your newsletter, open up that email or document, copy from there, paste to the newsletter. Quite the time saver.

Like so many things in Windows, there is more than one way to copy and paste. An alternate way to select text to be copied is to place your cursor at the beginning of it and then use the Arrow and End keys to highlight it. And if you have a large area to copy, you can use Page Down as well.

Also, instead of using the "right-click" context menus, you can use Ctrl+C to "Copy" and Ctrl+V to "Paste." If you want to give this a try, you can do it safely here. If you want more keyboard shortcuts, check here.


Change the size of your Windows
When you open Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, or any other application, does it fill your whole screen? It doesn't have to. You can have several programs open at the same time and you can see at least part of more than one of them. (This makes copying and pasting from a browser to email a lot easier!)

You're looking at this page in your browser. Look at the upper right hand corner, you'll see a button with a red X, a button with either a square with a darker line on top or two interlocking squares, and a line on the bottom of another button. You probably already know what the Red X does ---- don't try it now! (That will close the window.)

The left-hand button, with the small line at the bottom of it, minimizes the browser to the task bar at the bottom of your screen. Clicking there will restore the window to it's current size and position.

The button in the middle will change the size of the window. If you see a square in that middle button, clicking on it will make the window fill the whole screen. That's called maximizing the window. If you see two interlocking squares, clicking on the button will make the window for your program smaller. Once you've done that, you can adjust the size even more by using the other corners of your program.

This will work with any Windows program, not just the browser. When you get that window the size you want, you can move it to another part of the screen.

Now you can open other applications, size the windows the way you want them, and easily copy and paste between them. Give it a try!
 

Thank you to everyone who sent suggestions, comments, and questions. Please email me (cate@rlis.com) with yours! The column archive is always available here: http://rlis.com/column.htm. If you'd like to subscribe to this column by email, please visit this link.  It's easy, and free. If you'd prefer the RSS Feed, click here.


Links
Copy and Paste demo http://www.webmasternow.com/copyandpaste.html
Keyboard shortcuts http://rlis.com/columns/column48.htm
Press Any Key http://www.getdigital.de/products/Any_Key
Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archives http://rlis.com/column.htm
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Cate's list of good, free software http://rlis.com/columns/column75list.htm

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Cate Eales has been helping people make online computing safe, accessible and fun for over 20 years. She lives in Kelowna with her husband, Eric, and her dog, Sandy. Cate is a partner in Real Life Internet Solutions, helping individuals and small businesses with virus, spyware and malware eradication; personal computer training and management; digital image management; music transfer; and website design, hosting and management. Email Cate at cate@rlis.com with your comments, suggestions, or questions. To browse the column archives, visit the Real Life Internet Solutions website at www.rlis.com.