“Hold” Shortcuts Explained
If you are an Investment Banker or Consultant, the first type of shortcut you need to master is the Hold Shortcuts as they transcend the entire Microsoft Office Suite.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about what these are. You can either watch the video below, or scroll down to read more (I recommend the video).
To learn the best combinations of keyboard shortcuts for Investment Bankers and Consultants, check out my PowerPoint Crash Course (it’s going to blow you away).
The common characteristics of Hold Shortcuts are:
- They are the only type of shortcut that most people know
- They include the Alt, Shift and/or Ctrl key
- You need to the hold them down to make them work (which is different than most of the other shortcuts you’ll learn throughout this mini-series)
- You need to memorize them to take advantage of them (for the most part)
Traditionally, these are the hardest to learn because you have to memorize them. However, there is a new feature in PowerPoint that lets you learn them faster than ever before – it’s what I call “Hover to Discover”.
But first, here are 5 Hold Shortcuts every Investment Banker and Consultant should know like the back of their hand.
#1. The Copy Shortcut
The Copy shortcut allows you to copy an object onto your computer’s clipboard so that you can later reuse it in other places (on another slide or even in a different program like Word or Excel).
Ctrl + C is also an extremely important shortcut as it is the base shortcut for the Pick Up Style shortcut (allowing you to copy an object’s formatting), which you will learn about in my article on Shift-Sister Shortcuts.
#2. The Paste Shortcut
The Paste shortcut allows you to paste whatever you’ve copied to your clipboard into your PowerPoint, Word or Excel documents. This is often faster than re-creating and formatting an object from scratch.
Ctrl + V is also an extremely important shortcut as it’s the base shortcut for the Apply Style shortcut (allowing you to paste an object’s formatting), which you will learn about in my article on Shift-Sister Shortcuts.
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The New Slide shortcut allows you to insert a new blank slide into your presentation based on the layout you were just working on. So, if you’re working on a two-column layout, hitting Ctrl + M will create a new blank two-column slide for you to work on.
Adding new slides is one of the most common activities you perform in PowerPoint, which is why the new slide (Ctrl + M) is a critical shortcut for any Investment Banker or Consultant.
#4. The Duplicate Shortcut
With an object selected, hitting the Duplicate shortcut creates a duplicate it, which is twice as fast as the Copy and Paste shortcuts, as it is two keys strokes instead of four.
On top of that, the Duplicate shortcut has a hidden jump feature. If you duplicate an object and move it elsewhere on your slide, hitting the shortcut again will place a new duplicate object at the same distance as the first one.
This works because PowerPoint remembers how far and in which direction you move your first duplicate objects.
#5. The Paste Special Shortcut
The Paste Special shortcut gives you a variety of options for the format in which you can paste objects in PowerPoint. It’s especially handy for inserting text stripped of its formatting, and for pasting in elements as pictures.
This is the secret to getting at the metafile formats on the PC versions of Microsoft PowerPoint that allow you to do cool things like ungroup tables.
Turning on Hover to Discover
What I call ‘Hover to Discover’ is a new feature in the Microsoft Office suite that displays useful information about features and commands when you hover your mouse over them.
On top of that, for the most important commands (like those covered above), it will also display their respective shortcut keys.
That means that if you forget the keyboard shortcut for Paste Special, for example, you can simply hover your mouse over its command in the Ribbon and see exactly what its shortcut is.
By default, these features should be turned on in your version of PowerPoint, Word or Excel. However, it could be that yours have been turned off.
Feature #1. Turn on Show Feature Descriptions in ScreenTips.
To turn on this feature, follow these steps:
- Go to the File menu
- Click on Options
- Select General (pictured above)
- For ScreenTip style select Show feature descriptions in ScreenTips
Feature #2. Turn on Show shortcut keys in ScreenTips
To turn on this feature, follow these steps:
- Go to the File menu
- Click on Options
- Select Advanced
- Scroll down to display
- Select Show Shortcut Keys in ScreenTips
Hold Shortcut biggest mistake?
The biggest mistake when learning your Hold Shortcuts is trying to learn them all before you need them.
For example, two GREAT Hold Shortcuts are:
- Ctrl + K to insert a Hyperlink
- Alt + Shift + C for the Animation Painter
While these are GREAT shortcuts if you are creating interactive presentations with hyperlinks or creating cool effects with animations, if you never need to use either one, they’re a horrible waste of your time.
Your brain can only remember so many things at any given time, so I recommend not gumming it up with shortcuts you will never use.
With your Hold Shortcuts down, now you are ready for a slight variation on these which can instantly double the number of PowerPoint shortcuts you know.
Up Next …
In the next lesson we’ll cover Shift-Sister Shortcuts.
