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Quick Tips

Quick Tip: Free one page quick reference guides for Microsoft and Adobe products are available here: http://www.customguide.com/quick_references.htm  These quick ref guides include keyboard shortcuts, instructions for certain tasks, and labels for buttons/icons.  Guides are available for Microsoft Office, Windows, Mac OS, Adobe products.  Old versions of the software are also included.
Quick Tip: Never respond to any e-mail that asks for any password.  These e-mails are NEVER legitimate.  It doesn't matter who seemingly sent it, or how important it looks.  If it asks for any password from you, just delete it.  Also, e-mail is generally not encrypted, so never send a password through e-mail to anyone.
Quick Tip: Many people confuse the back slash and forward slash characters.  
/ = A forward slash (or just slash), most often seen in web addresses: http://www.vt.edu (found under the ? key)
\ = A back slash, most often seen to file paths: c:\windows\temp (found under the | key, usually above the enter key)
Quick Tip: Have you ever needed to convert a file from one format to another?  Ex. a PDF to a Word document?
Try http://www.zamzar.com  It can convert most types of files from one type to another.  It's free, but the results will vary.  Also, remember to not convert any confidential files.
Note: Zamzar will e-mail you the link to download your converted file.  Virginia Tech is unable to receive e-mail from Zamzar, so you must use a personal e-mail account (such as Gmail, or Live Mail).

Quick Tip: Keyboard short-cuts are a great way to save some time.  Here are a couple of useful ones: 

  • Copy Text:  Ctrl-c  (For Mac Users: Apple Key-c)
  • Cut Text:   Ctrl-x  (For Mac Users: Apple Key-x)
  • Paste Text: Ctrl-v  (For Mac Users: Apple Key-v)
  • Select All: Ctrl-a  (For Mac Users: Apple Key-a)

These work across the Windows and Mac systems, from within your email application to Word, and they even work with files.  You can quickly move a large number of files by hitting Ctrl-a to select them all, and then Ctrl-x to "cut" them.  Then go to the location you want them moved to, and hit Ctrl-v to "paste" them.