You don't always have a mouse with you when you're using a laptop. Some people never use one and rely strictly on the trackpad. Others use a mouse when they're seated at a table or a desk. But you can't use a mouse when you're on a couch or with the computer on your lap. Adding to this, there are some touchscreen laptops out there that make not having a mouse less of an issue.
But Windows 11 has a ton of other shortcuts, many of which help me through my work day.
Windows 11
Microsoft Windows 11 is the latest operating system created by Microsoft. It offers Windows 11, 11 Pro, and 11 for Business.
Minimize all the windows at one time
Get to your desktop much quicker
Do you ever have so many windows open that you can't actually figure out which one you need at a certain time? This happens to me a lot. I like to open up multiple Windows rather than have 100 tabs open, and I find it easier to group things together. Plus, I frequently have Spotify open as well as Word or Excel, depending on the work I'm doing. If I have to get to my desktop to access something, which is usually for screenshots, I don't want to minimize every window that I have open.
Hovering over the taskbar icons to see how many Chrome windows I have open or other programs is never fun. That's why I use the Windows button (Win) + D, which minimizes all of my windows at once. It brings me right to my desktop, giving me access to the home screen immediately. This is different from swiping four fingers up on the trackpad, which shows you all the windows that you have open. You can click any of those windows, but you aren't able to get to your desktop. The best part is it doesn't only minimize the windows. If you press the shortcut again, all the windows open again, keeping them available for you to cycle through.
Extract text from screenshots
This is an absolute gamechanger
Some Windows laptops are set up to open up a photo in either the Paint or Photos applications. You need to have it open in the Snipping Tool app for this to work.
Do you ever screenshot something by pressing the Print Screen button or Win + Shift + S and then want to use the screenshot to remember something? I've done this for plenty of stories, as you can see in a lot of images on the site. But I've also used this feature to save things such as payment confirmations after I pay a bill online. There are numerous reasons why you may want to screenshot something, but it turns whatever was on your screen into a photo. This means that for years, you weren't able to highlight anything that was in the photo other than if you were marking it up or editing it.
The Windows 11 shortcut of extracting text from screenshots has been a major boost for my productivity. When you screenshot something, Windows lets you open that image in the Snipping Tool. Inside the Snipping Tool, there are a number of tools at the top. One of the new ones is a square with horizontal lines on the inside (this is the Text Actions tool). Clicking this utilizes AI to examine the image and highlight where the text is in the picture. A purple barrier surrounds any text in the image. Other options then populate, allowing you to either copy all text, copy it as a table, or quickly redact any email addresses or phone numbers from the image. If you copy all the text, you can then paste it in any app you choose.
Zoom in and out with your keyboard
I'm constantly trying to see what's happening on my screen
The Magnifier tool has come in handy more often than I expected. I'm constantly in video meetings and calls where someone is sharing their screen. Usually I struggle to read the small print on their display, which forces me to lean forward to read the screen. This also changes how I look on camera, as everyone else will then see my face, or at least my forehead, a lot closer to the screen. Rather than continuing to squint and hurt my eyes, I started using Win + the Plus Button to bring up the Magnifier.
Magnifier can help you increase the zoom of your screen, helping you magnify anything your cursor goes over and minimizing your need to get so close to your screen. You can choose to magnify the entire screen or just a section of it. The Magnifier tool lets you magnify up to 1600% of what your original screen looked like. Of course, you can also minimize the zoom by pressing Win + the Minus Key. The Magnifier tool offers the ability to select an area on the screen and have your computer read to your text from that point. This can also be accomplished with Ctrl + Alt + Left-click on a mouse or trackpad. This helps you read other parts of a screen while you're zoomed in looking at something else.
Look at your clipboard history
Find the things you copied a few minutes ago
Whether I'm balancing my personal budget or I'm reading emails for work, I'm constantly copying and pasting things into different applications. Trying to stay as organized as I can, sometimes I'm moving my fingers too fast and copy something that I either didn't mean to or didn't paste before I copied something else. This is when using Win + V to view my entire clipboard history. Windows shows you all of your clipboard history in a small window.
The most recent 25 things you've copied will populate in the clipboard history. You have the opportunity to go back to any screenshots, text you've highlighted, and more to revisit it. This is extremely helpful during my workday. I use it all the time to go back and revisit something I'd copied earlier in the day.