All About the F Keys

Reader Mell Rose Fowler writes: Chris, can you please tell me where I can go to learn how to use all the F keys? I'm not a computer dummy until it comes to using shortcut
keys.

This isn't a terrible question. Most users rarely, if ever, use that 6th row of keys on top of the keyboard, and a primer would seem to be in order.

About 10 or 15 years ago, F keys (or function keys) were the preferred method for automating common tasks like spell-check and opening new files. But over time, combos using the control key generally took hold, as it requires much less of a stretch to hit the Ctrl button than reach to that row at the top of the keyboard. Today, function key combos still exist, but they don't make sense for most users.

A bigger problem with F keys: There's no standard way of using them. F5 means go to a certain page number in Word, but it means refresh the screen in Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer (making it one of the most useful F keys around). Unlike, say, Control-C, -X, and -V, F keys are notoriously unstandardized.

Where should you go to find out what the F keys do in your application of choice? Why, the Help menu, of course. Searching for "keyboard shortcuts" within your app's help system will usually show you what all the F keys do, as well as Control key combos.

If you can't figure out how to get to Help, that's easy: Use the one F key that is pretty much standardized across the board: Hit F1 and you'll almost certainly be whisked away to Helpland. Good luck!