CTRL + F by Janis Spivey

“Come on, little pawty dog! Hewp me find the little putty tat!”  Bugs Bunny

Dixie, being the practical dog she is, decided her first blog should be something very useful – CTRL + F.

Microsoft decided, in a rare moment of compassion for their users, to implement Keyboard Shortcuts. Wonderful! The most useful is the CTRL + F (hold down the CTRL key and then enter F).  

A small box will appear on your screen, normally in the top, right-hand corner. Enter the search term you want, usually a word, and hit Enter. If you are at the top of the document, the first occurrence will be found. The Find command box also shows how many occurrences of that term are present, e.g. ‘1 of 8.’ It also highlights the term.  If you’re in the middle of the document, it will say ‘5 of 8,’ and, if you continue searching, it will return the next occurrence, and will loop to the top of the document if you click the Next (points down) or Previous (points up) arrow.

Within Microsoft Word, the Find ‘binocular icon’ actually activates the CTRL + F function for its search. The Find box appears in the top left corner outside the document.  The Find box is at the top right in some browsers.

The term can be multiple words. If you want to find all the Tom Hanks movies we have, simply enter Tom Hanks in the find box (we have 19). FYI, caps don’t matter; you could enter tom hanks.  

Using CTRL + F is especially useful for our RPBOOKS website. Within the Residents Directory you can search for a person’s name or find all residents who have the name Bob (CTRL + F, search word Bob). Within books you can search for all books having a particular word in their title – especially helpful if you can’t remember the book title. Or you can search for a specific author. Within movies you can search for an actor, a movie in the category ‘comedy’ or for release year ‘2015’ for a recent movie.  

Of potentially even more value, CTRL + F works on most screens. It works on a PDF.  It works on your bank’s online system, and, if you’ve downloaded your statement, it’s good at finding transactions with computer generated info, e.g. finding your ‘COMCAST’ payments. It, of course, doesn’t work on pictures or handwritten words.  

Give CTRL + F a try. Dixie thinks you’ll like it too!