Things your PC never volunteers

I discovered recently one of my clients, the owner of a catering products exporter had no idea that cut and paste existed. For years he has been re-typing rather than moving paragraphs. This is an extreme example but because these days, in part, because software rarely includes a printed manual many basic features remain hidden, even after years of PC use.

Ideally send staff on a training courses or at the very least buy in some training materials but in a small business one absent staff member is a significant reduction in the workforce, combine that with the ever present need to keep overheads down and it explains why not a single one of the small business I look after invests in IT training.

Whilst it is tricky sparing the time to send staff on training courses why not offer an incentive for them work at one in their own time? Say a £300 bonus on successful completion plus course fees. For less than two percent of the average salary I’d expect much more than a two percent productivity gain. Particularly so because what one employees learns often quickly spreads round the office.

I recommend the well designed European Computer Driving License (ECDL). It’s widely available, often heavily subsided by local authorities, sometimes even free.

Even the smallest chunk of training can pay big dividends. Take the time to carefully run through this list with each member of staff, if only a couple of these tips are of use to them it'll be time well spent.

General
CTRL+Mouse Wheel: Zooms in and out in Office, Web browsers and many other apps.

Right Click - for a context menu. I suggest demonstrating spelling corrections and cut and paste.

Selecting Items:
Left Click+CTRL toggles selected item.
Left Click+SHIFT selects everything between the point clicked and the previous selected item.
CTRL+A selects everything.

Word
Format Painter tool – copies text formatting. Access it via the toolbar button with a paintbrush on it.

Shift+F3 - Switches the capitalization of the current selection between upper case, lower case and title Caps (the first letter of each word is capitalised).

Select rectangular blocks of text in Word (2003 and later) by dragging with left mouse button while holding down the Alt and key.

Windows
Hold down Alt, and repeatedly tap Tab: to task switch in Windows, an incredibly useful shortcut many PC users don’t know about..

Dragging and dropping files – always do so with the right mouse button, a little menu will pop up asking whether you want to move or copy the file. Getting into the habit avoids an inadvertent move rather than a copy. Check users know how to drag and drop, as well how to create and delete folders.

Windows Explorer folder views
Alternative views of a folder are accessed via the View menu or a button with a (rather indistinct) list image on it.

Do staff know that in details mode that they can click the folder headings to re-order the list of files? Demonstrate bringing the most recently modified to the top of the list by clicking the 'Date modified' column heading.

CD Writing
Discovering only when a third party gets your disk that it is faulty or blank can prove disastrous. Check users know how to write a CD/DVD In most cases this is best done with the software supplied with the PC or drive, rather than Windows own tool which lacks the ability to verify the result. If you must rely on Windows copy the data back to temporary folder to check the CD.

If you have Roxio / Sonic’s writer software switch on ‘Verify’ in Options (in some versions accessed via a spanner icon) then click on 'Data'. In the current version of Nero Express the verify box should be ticked each time a disc is written.

Whatever software you use ensure the PC is doing as few other tasks as possible when writing a disc, including not using it until it starts verifying.