Ever wondered about those mysterious F1, F2, F3… keys at the top of your keyboard? They can be useful (Windows), although the problem is not every single program co-operates.
F1… in most programs it will open the help documentation.
F2… if you have selected a file or folder, pressing F2 will easily let you rename it.
F3… activates ‘search’: in most browsers you can then search the text on the page, in Outlook it will activate the search box, but mysteriously doesn’t work in Word.
F4… Alt+F4 will close the program you are using; when you’re browsing the web, Ctrl+F4 will close the tab you are looking at
F5… refreshes the web page you are looking at
F6… activates the address bar of your browser so you can type a new website address, or search using your default search engine
F7… immediately runs a spelling & grammar check on your Word document
F8… access the boot menu when your computer is loading. If you don’t know what that means we advise you never use it unless you’re being talked through something. We’ve only put it in for completeness.
F9… Send & receive emails in Outlook, although most people have emails coming in automatically now. It also refreshes Word and Excel documents, useful for updating contents tables, formulae results and more.
F10… activates the menu system of the program you are using. Most browsers now don’t show a menu by default, but pressing F10 will make it appear.
F11… switch to full screen mode in your browser; press it again to exit
F12… opens ‘Save As’ in Microsoft Office to let you save the file under a different name. Much quicker than using the menu.
