Tips & tricks

Shift+F5 in Word: jump to your last edit

Shift+F5

Open a document and Word dumps you at the start. Shift+F5 jumps exactly to where you last stopped writing.

Hidden formatting marks: why a document behaves strangely

Ctrl+Shift+8

The ¶ button reveals spaces, tabs, and page breaks. Suddenly you can see exactly why text jumps where it shouldn't — and what to delete.

Ctrl+Enter: a new page without hammering Enter

Ctrl+Enter

Paginating with twenty presses of Enter falls apart at the first edit. Ctrl+Enter inserts a real page break that stays put.

Alt+drag in Word: a vertical text selection

Hold Alt and drag with the mouse — Word selects a rectangle of text across lines. Perfect for deleting a column of characters that a normal selection can't grab.

Turn on captions during a meeting — they work in Czech too

Teams, Zoom, and Meet can all show live speech captions, and Czech is among the supported languages. A lifesaver in noise, with bad audio, or a quiet speaker.

Stop retyping file paths: drag the file into the terminal

Dragging a file from File Explorer or Finder into a terminal window inserts its full path — correctly quoted, without a single typo.

From the terminal to File Explorer or Finder: open . and explorer.exe .

Open the current folder from the terminal in your graphical file manager with one command: “open .” on a Mac, “explorer.exe .” on Windows and in WSL.

Ctrl+R in the terminal: type a piece of a command, history finds it

Ctrl+R

You don't have to fish a long command from last week out with the up arrow. Ctrl+R searches history for any fragment and autocompletes the whole thing.

Speed up key repeat: the cursor flies, so does deleting

Holding an arrow key or Backspace repeats at a speed you can configure. Two sliders almost nobody ever touches — and typing instantly feels snappier.

python -m http.server: share a folder over the network with one command

Need to get files onto another device on the same network? Python turns any folder into a downloadable web page.

Exam registration: a reminder for the exact minute it opens

Exam slots fill up within minutes. A reminder set to the exact moment registration opens decides whether you plan your exam period, or take whatever's left.

Free trial? Cancel it right away — it runs the full course anyway

For subscriptions through the App Store or Google Play, you can cancel the trial a minute after activating it: it still runs to the end, and nothing gets charged. Elsewhere, a reminder does the job.

The 20-20-20 rule: your eyes need a break before you feel it

After 20 minutes at a screen, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. The eye muscles relax and you skip the dry, burning eyes come evening.

The parking file: unfinished work survives every interruption

Before a meeting or a coworker pulls you away, write one sentence: what you're doing and what the next step is. Coming back then takes seconds, not a quarter hour.

Your monitor can do 120 Hz but runs at 60: turn on the full refresh rate

Plenty of monitors and laptops run at 60 Hz even though the hardware can do more. One setting, and scrolling suddenly feels buttery smooth.

Rotate your second monitor to portrait: a whole page at once

A monitor rotated 90° shows a full document page, a long email, or code without endless scrolling. Windows and Mac both handle it right in settings.

Text from paper straight into a field: Live Text and Google Lens

Stop retyping details off paper. iPhone can scan text with the camera directly into a text field; Android does the same through Google Lens.

Swipe along the bottom edge: Alt+Tab for your phone

Swiping right along the bottom edge of the screen switches to your previous app — on iPhone and on Android with gesture navigation. No app switcher needed.

Numbers without switching keyboards: slide your finger off the 123 key

On iPhone, slide your finger off the 123 key onto a digit and the keyboard snaps back to letters by itself. Gboard has a key hold or a permanent number row.

Cap charging at 80%: your battery lasts years longer

A laptop permanently docked at 100% is wrecking its battery. Almost every manufacturer has a hidden option that stops charging earlier — and multiplies the battery's lifespan.

Tap the clock to jump a long page back to the top

On iPhone, just tap the status bar with the clock and any long list, webpage, or chat snaps back to the top. No scrolling required.

Three fingers on iPhone: copy, paste, and undo

The iPhone has gestures for working with text: a three-finger pinch copies, a spread pastes, and a swipe left undoes the last action.

Photograph the Whiteboard — Google Photos Will Find It by Its Text

Google Photos reads the text in your pictures. A photographed whiteboard or slide can then be found a month later just by searching for a term that was written on it.

Cornell Notes, Stripped Down: A Folded Margin and a Summary Line

The most effective note-taking format doesn't need a template: fold a margin for questions and leave a line at the bottom for a summary. Your notes turn themselves into a practice test.

Quick Share: Files From Android to Windows, No Cable

AirDrop's counterpart is built into every newer Android phone — and with a free app from Google it sends photos and files to Windows too.

Gboard Has a Clipboard History — Win+V in Your Pocket

The Gboard keyboard remembers what you last copied, and you can pin important items permanently. Just turn it on.

Stop Correcting AI Forever: Edit Your Original Message Instead

Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini can all edit a message you've already sent and answer again from a clean slate. A lesser-known button that rescues tangled conversations.

A Table Locked Inside a PDF: AI Puts It Back Into Excel

Copying a table out of a PDF turns the columns into one tangled noodle of text. Upload the PDF to AI, ask for CSV — and check the control total.

Word on the Tip of Your Tongue: AI as a Reverse Dictionary

You know the meaning but not the word? Describe it to AI and get ten candidates with the shades of difference between them. Works for technical terms and cliché-free synonyms too.

A Glossary for Your First Meeting: AI Explains the Acronyms in Your Materials

New project, and a document full of acronyms and jargon? AI pulls out every term and explains it in context — flagging what it's only guessing.