Ctrl F - an important writer's tool

1. 82

   theraggededgeposted 7 years ago

   I'm gathering from other messages today that many people aren't aware of Ctrl F to search for anything. It works in browsers and almost all other software, including emails, word processors, spreadsheets, blog posts, etc.
   
   It's one of those tools that quickly becomes essential for any writer. You can immediately tell how many times you (or someone else) has used a keyword. You can locate a section of text in a long document. You can search instances of anything that you need to find fast, whether it's publisher IDs or account numbers.

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      liesl5858posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      hello! theraggededge, thank you very much for this tip. I must admit I don't often use it.

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      RoadMonkeyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      CTRL+F is one of the most used tools on my keyboard. You can use it on PDFs too and I have also used it on those long long pages you get if you are searching through coding when looking for a particular item in a web page.

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      sallybeaposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you, you learn something every day.

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   Natalie Frankposted 7 years ago

   You're right.  I for one wasn't aware of this function.  Thanks.

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3. 71

   Bede le Venerableposted 7 years ago

   I use Ctrl F when proof reading one of my articles. Overused transitions words such as likewise or however emerge, then I find an alternative word. It’s a helpful tool. Thanks for the tip on using it for browsing.

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4. 66

   lobobrandonposted 7 years ago

   Other than the command line I think it works everywhere, very useful. For macs I reckon it would be command+F. I noticed that many didn't know about this today, too. Glad that you posted about it.

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5. 76

   wildernessposted 7 years ago

   I sometimes use it when searching a site that HP says has stolen my work.  It's not always easy to find the copied material, and control F can help.  Hadn't thought of using it for keywords, though - that's a good idea.

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6. 54

   Daniel Mollatposted 7 years ago

   I use Control+F extensively everywhere I need to do any writing. Another feature I use extensively while writing articles is the Thesaurus function of Words. It's a very handy tool when you are writing and don't want to be repeating the same word frequently. If you are using Microsoft Word in drafting your article the thesaurus function is under the 'Review' tab in the section 'Proofing'
   
   Hope this is helpful to hubber writers.

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7. 65

   eugbugposted 7 years ago

   And don't forget its other useful siblings: CTRL + A for select all, CTRL + C to copy to the clipboard, CTRL + V to paste from the clipboard and CTRL + Z to undo. Those of us who remember MSDOS, pre-Windows 3.1 will know how useful keyboard shortcuts were before applications supported a mouse.

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      theraggededgeposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Oh god, I do remember. Typing in green on a black screen, having to add all the print controls. And only having a daisy wheel printer (£1,000 cost), so couldn't adjust the type size within a document. I have no idea how we managed to produce decent documents at all.
      
      And I had a £2,000 computer that didn't even have a hard drive. But it did have (whoo-hoo) two 3.5 floppy drives.
      
      1984 - fab.

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      1. 65

         eugbugposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         LOL! In college we used some old microprocessor development systems that worked off 8 inch floppies. Then IBM PCs with hard drives arrived after 1985 and I almost formatted one by mistake by typing "Format" and forgetting to add the "A:". Good thing there was an "Are you sure?" message.

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         Marketing Meritposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Lol Bev. I remember my Dad buying a Commodore computer with a daisy wheel printer. Think it connected to a portable tv, as don't recall a monitor. Cost an absolute fortune at the time.
         
         As regards Ctrl +F, can't imagine how painstaking it must have been for those searching manually for their published ID. I tend to use an IPad when browsing, and you can do a page search there by deleting the text in the address bar and entering the search term. Under 'on this page' it comes up with the number of matches for the search term. Unsure if this is widely known either.

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