Understanding the main keys : Chromebook is a different category of laptop or tablet in itself and has stark differences from the conventional models. Thus it takes time for the users to understand their basic functionality and work. Before getting into the keyboard shortcuts, it is important to understand the important keys. There are two major categories of this:
- Function keys– This includes the keys from F1 to F12 and is used for various kinds of shortcuts. To give input to these keys, you just need to press the search button along with the corresponding number of the function key. The exceptional cases lie in F11 and F12, where the inputs can be given by search and hyphen(-) and search and keys respectively. The easiest key is of F10 which corresponds to 0.
- Master keys– These include the keys of Undo, Ctrl, Alt, Delete, Select All, and Page Down. They are called so because their combinations are used to form different shortcuts that can be used to access options easily. In other words, these shortcuts are called the hotkeys about which the next section speaks.
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Chromebook Keyboard Shortcuts |Hotkeys
The hotkeys are the group of Chromebook-specific shortcuts that are formed by using the master keys. The following are some of the most commonly used ones:
- Ctrl + Shift + L – Lock the Chromebook’s screen
- Ctrl + Shift + Q – Log out of the Chromebook. Twice this combination can quit the device.
- Alt + E – Opens Google Chrome’s browser menu
- Alt + 1-8 – Launch applications located on Chrome OS shelf
- Alt + [ – Dock a window to the left side of the screen.
- Alt + ] – Dock a window to the right side of the screen.
- Ctrl + Switcher/F5 – Take a screenshot and save it to the ‘Downloads’ folder
- Ctrl + Shift + Switcher/F5 – Take a screenshot of part of the screen. Use the cursor to select the part of the screen you want to save.
- Ctrl + Shift and + – Increase screen scale, making items appear larger on your screen.
- Ctrl + Shift and – – Decrease screen scale, making items appear smaller on your screen.
- Ctrl + Shift + ) – Reset screen scale to the default setting
- Alt + Search – Switch to Caps Lock
- Shift + Esc – Chromebook shortcut to Launch the Task Manager.
- Ctrl + Shift + Refresh / F3 – This Shortcut key rotates your Screen by 90 degrees.
- Ctrl + Immersive Mode / F4 – With this Chromebook keyboard hotkey you can effortlessly configure display settings when an external, monitor is connected.
Life becomes pretty simple once a user aces in using these shortcuts and then the tasks become easy to execute.
Some times using these shortcuts may not be possible because of the issue with your keyboard. We could not tell exactly what is the reason for Chromebook keyboard failure. Anyway we have covered indepth information on fixing Chromebook Keyboard not Working error. Just go through it once, may be it could help you in resolving the issue.
Creating the custom shortcuts on Chromebook
Along with these, the Chromebook users also have the liberty to create their own and customized shortcuts that are easy to remember. It can be done via the following steps:
- Go to Google Chrome and select on More Tools-> Extensions.
- Scroll down to go to the option for Keyboard Shortcuts.
- The next dialog box opens up where you can enter your combinations of the keys to create the shortcuts.
- For certain functions, the choices are also given to either make the shortcut only for a particular app or global i.e. for all applications in the Chromebook having those functions.
- Click on OK to complete the process.
Thus, Chromebook offers both in-built shortcuts as well as customized shortcuts to the users to make their lives beds of roses amidst the monotonous jobs. Feel free to suggest any more shortcuts that you have discovered in our comments section.