Using the keyboard

There isn't a great deal to say about standard QWERTY (pronounced kwer'tea) keyboards aside for the fact that for the keyboard illiterate, it can be difficult to find the letter you want. The original layout was developed by Sholes in 1868 to prevent stuck keys in mechanical typewriters. The only reason they haven't been improved since then is that no-one has bothered to re-design and aggressively market one.

Overview

What I will focus on here is the general design of a windows keyboard, keyboard shortcuts, and the function of all of the keys - including the less well-known ones. Although this tutorial focuses on the most popular operating system at time of writing, most of the key functions are ubiquitous across operating systems. Take a look at the layout of a computer keyboard:

I've tinted groups of keys so you can understand how to use them. The untinted keys are pretty much standard typewriter keys. From left to right, top to bottom, lets look at the keys on a standard UK 104-key "Windows" keyboard.

• The pink & blue key in the top left is the "escape" key. Usually abbreviated to "esc" its a good key to try to abort the current action, quit the current program, cancel or abort the action.
• The Function keys run across the top of the keyboard, from F1 to F12.
• The light green keys are from the MS-DOS era of computing, a handed-down legacy - hardly used although a few of them useful for experienced users.
• The dark green cluster of keys on the far right is the numeric keypad. If you work with numbers, you will find the keypad a lot more user friendly than the numbers along the top of the main keyboard area.
• The light blue (cyan coloured) keys are the keys CTRL (control), the Windows key (look it has a little windows logo on it), ALT (alternate), ALT GR (also alternate, adds accents to letter keys), another windows key, then the "menu" key, which has the same function as the right mouse button, then another ctrl key.
• The yellow keys are the arrow keys.
• Finally the red keys are the "enter" or "return" keys. The term "return" is again a spin off from mechanical typewriters that used the key as a "carriage return", moving the paper up one line to allow for more text to be typed.

Specific Keys

The Function Keys (F1 to F12)

F1: The F1 key will activate the program-specific help menu. For example, if you are browsing the internet like you are now, the F1 key will open internet explorer help. Pressing F1 whilst viewing the dektop will open windows help and support center.

F2: The F2 key is the shortcut for renaming files. When using internet explorer browsing files in a specific folder, you left click to highlight or select the file, then press F2 to rename the file.

F3: The F3 key is the keyboard shortcut to open the search diagolgue box to search for a file or folder on your PC or network, or if you are looking for a certain word on a web-page.

F4: F4 on its own doesn't do a great deal apart from displaying the address bar list in internet explorer.

F5: F5 Refreshes the active window (the window you are currently looking at or working in). Pressing F5 whilst Windows 95 or Windows 98 is booting (before the picture loads) enters a diagnostic and troubleshooting mode for the operating system called "safe mode". This is commonly achieved by repeatedly tapping the key during the boot process.

F6: F6 cycles through screen elements in a window or on the desktop in exactly the same way as the tab key. Pressing F6 whilst Windows 95 or Windows 98 is booting (before the picture loads) enters a diagnostic and troubleshooting mode for the operating system called "safe mode with network support". This is commonly achieved by repeatedly tapping the key during the boot process.

F7: F7 does exactly nothing.

F8: F8 comes into its own during the boot process for windows 95, 98, Me and XP. Pressing F8 whilst Windows is booting (before the picture loads) enters a menu for diagnostic and troubleshooting tools. Once the operating system has loaded however, F8 has a similar function to F7.

F9: F9 builds on the fundamentals of F7 and adds nothing.

F10: F10 activates the menu bar in an active program (useful only if your mouse dies or your fingers cant reach alt + the underlined letter in the menu).

F11 and F12: Are reserved for the same function as F7.

The Legacy Cluster

Print Screen used to literally send the screen content to the printer, but nowadays stores an image of the screen as a bit-map that can be pasted into an application like Microsoft Paint. Underneath "print screen" or "prt scn", is "SysRq" or "system request" which is one of the least used keys on the keyboard. Nowadays it does virtually nothing, but if you want to know what it did, read about it here (opens a new window). If you want to use it, you have to hold down "alt", and press it.

Scroll Lock is probably one of the most useless keys on the keyboard today, having previously toggled between scrolling the content of a screen and moving the cursor, its function save in windows excel (a spreadsheet program) is almost entirely obselete.

Pause is most commonly used to interrupt the screen output from the bios, well before the operating system has loaded to give technicians an idea about the hardware setup at a low level. The break function underneath (activated by holding cntrl and pressing Pause/Break) does very little nowadays, but used to stop program execution (cntrl-C has superceded its use). Want to know more? read about it here (opens a new window).

Insert toggles between inserting characters at the cursor or overwriting them. The default setting is to insert.

Home the home key returns the cursor to the beginning of the line in editable text, or the beginning of the document in un-editable text.

Page up and Page Down scrolls up and down in documents.

Delete deletes characters in front of the cursor (in the opposite direction from backspace, above the return key).

End functions in the opposite way to the home key.

The Numeric Keypad

At one time the numeric keypad was an add-on to the standard keyboard, now it comes as part of the keyboard. You will find the mathematical functions + - * (multiply) and / (divide). The Num Lock key in the top left corner activates or deactivates the keypad. You will also find Home, PgUP, End and PgDn on the keys 7,9,1 and 3 respectively, and arrows on the keys 8,4,6, and 2. Activate these functions by holding shift. In the bottom right is the "enter" key, which has the same function as the "return" key in the typewriter block of keys.

The "Special" Keys

Left Ctrl, Alt, Alt Gr and right ctrl do nothing on their own, but are used as part of a key combination, like the "shift" key (the arrow up keys above the ctrl keys) alternates between lower and uppercase letters, holding ctrl, Alt or Alt GR gives a specific function to a key. These types of key are called "modifier keys". Read more about key combinations further on in this page. The windows key is used to activate the start menu , or as part of a key-combination. The menu key, between the right windows key and right ctrl key has the same function as the right mouse button - an application specific menu that changes depending on what program you are using.

The Arrow Keys

The arrow keys can be used to scroll up or down a document, position the cursor in an editable document or navigate menus. They can be found both on their own cluster (highlighted yellow in the "overview" picture) or on the number pad (you will need to press and hold shift to activate them).

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