While pondering my computer keyboard the other day, it dawned upon me that all the Ctrl key combinations for all the alphabet keys are nearly fully taken by commonly-used commands. Is it true? Why not find out!

Here are the Ctrl keys from A to Z for most programs, as best as I can recall them from memory:

Ctrl+A, the Select All command

Ctrl+B, make text Bold

Ctrl+C, Copy selected text or graphics

Ctrl+D, not commonly used by summons the Font dialog box in a few applications, such as Microsoft Word

Ctrl+E, not commonly used, but performs full text justification in Microsoft Word

Ctrl+F, Find command

Ctrl+G, Find again command in some applications; the Goto command in Microsoft Word

Ctrl+H, Search and Replace command

Ctrl+I, make text Italics

Ctrl+J, full text justification in Microsoft Word, otherwise not widely used

Ctrl+K, not used for anything really

Ctrl+L, not often used, though does full text justification in Microsoft Word

Ctrl+M, not often used, though does a one tab-stop indent for paragraphs in Microsoft Word

Ctrl+N, New document

Ctrl+O, Open file

Ctrl+P, Print

Ctrl+Q, not often used

Ctrl+R, not often used, though sets right text justification in many programs

Ctrl+S, Save

Ctrl+T, not often used; in Microsoft Word formats the paragraph to a hanging indent

Ctrl+U, Underline text

Ctrl+V, Paste text or graphics

Ctrl+W, Close window command

Ctrl+X, Cut selected text or graphics

Ctrl+Y, Redo command in most applications

Ctrl+Z, Undo

Apparently the dog keys are D, E, J, K, L, M, Q, R, and T. I’m sure that some programs make use of them, but that command assignment isn’t really consistent between applications.

Of course, I’m not implying that every dang doodle key on the keyboard must have a specific command equivalent. It’s nice that of the 26 alphabet keys on the keyboard there are some 17 that have pretty consistent assignments. That makes using a computer easier because it doesn’t take that long to learn a new program.

Anyone else recall the old days, back in the 1980s where each program used its own unique key combination for everything? Microsoft Word once used Esc, F, T, S to save, WordPerfect used F10, each program had its own combination. So, it’s nifty to take whatever consistency we can get.