Keyboard shortcuts are also popularly known as Hotkeys. Knowing how efficient it can be to get stuff done with shortcut keys, it can be a little frustrating to find out that the shortcuts that you need to get some tasks done easily are not available.
However, it is not difficult to create your own keyboard shortcut or a combination of keys to perform various tasks. You may need keyboard shortcuts for launching frequently used applications, opening specific files and folders, and you can create these shortcuts with your own unique combos.
Before you begin creating or experimenting with Windows shortcuts, it is important to learn the ones that already exist. You may find out that what you’re looking for is already available and that will prevent you from creating duplicate or already existing shortcuts. This is the reason why this lesson on creating hotkeys comes last in this course.
Creating a new keyboard shortcut for a file, folder or program is really easy. First, select the program that you would like to create a shortcut for. Right-click on it and select “create shortcut”. Note that this doesn’t create the keyboard shortcut yet. It only creates an icon which is a sort of shortcut or duplicate of the original program, which will open the original copy of the program if you click on it.
This newly created shortcut can be used to create the shortcut key. To do this, right-click on it and select “properties”. This opens a dialog box containing properties of this shortcut. To create the shortcut key, fill the field labelled “Shortcut key” with your choice or combination of keys which you choose to use as the shortcut key. In creating shortcut keys, it is advisable to begin with a function key (F1 – F12) or any modifier key (Ctrl, Alt or Shift).
After inputting the shortcut key, click on “Apply”, then “OK” and you’re done. Now pressing a combination of these keys will launch the file, folder or program you assigned the shortcut key to, saving you a lot of time and stress.