How to Create Hot Keys for Your Software

A Heavy computer user knows the importance of using keyboard shortcuts to minimize the waste of time that occurs when you manually have to do that. Suppose you are editing a document in word and you want to the change the size of a sentence. With Mouse you go to Format and navigate to fonts. Then you select the font size value and then you click OK to apply the changes. Now you see that still you need to increase the size of the sentence and you repeat the process discussed earlier all over again to change the size and do it again if you are still not satisfied. Now just think of the increase in your productivity and the decrease in the time and frustration if you knew a simple shortcut Shift+Ctrl+> to go about applying the same effect.

This applies to a specific word processor program but if you want to open applications with the help of your keyboard then may be you will be scratching your head as to how that can be done. Well, the process is extremely simple and you are not required to install any Third Party proprietary software for setting up shortcuts for that.

The process is extremely simple and is described below. For the current discussion we will assume that you want to launch Microsoft Word by just pressing a Hot Key that we will be assigning to it.

It is obvious that there would be a start menu entry for every applications that you have installed. So just Navigate to Start Menu --> Programs --> Microsoft Office. Now right click on the Microsoft Word Shortcut. This will activate a context menu. Now just select the properties option, which is the last option in the context menu. There you will see a option with no default value set below the Start In field. That field is Shortcut key. Now click on it and make sure that a cursor appears.

Now just press the desired Shortcut involving the Alt and the Ctrl key. Suppose for this example we assign a simple shortcut Alt + Ctrl + W. Now just press OK. Now click on the desktop and press the shortcut key (now Hot Key) that you just designated to Microsoft Office Word. And voila!, Microsoft Word Application started as if you manually click on the Microsoft Word's Shortcut Icon.

This process is a one time process and unique shortcut keys can be applied to all the applications that are present in the start menu.