Keyboard shortcut of the week: create your own

If you have a program that you use a lot you can create your own combination of keys to run it. In this tutorial we will set up a keyboard shortcut for Microsoft Word.

The keyboard combination is associated with a shortcut rather than the program itself. So we need to locate a shortcut for Word. You may have one on your desktop, if not you will have one in your Start menu. It is generally best to associate the combination of keys with the shortcut in the Start menu because if the shortcut is deleted the key combination will not work any more, and this is less likely to happen with the Start menu shortcut.

Click on the 'Start' button, then hover over 'Programs', then over 'Microsoft Office', then right-click on the icon for Word and select 'Properties' (or do the same on your desktop icon if you wish to use that one instead).


Go to the 'Shortcut' tab on the 'Properties' dialogue box and click on the text box next to 'Shortcut key' where it says 'None'. Hold down Ctrl and Alt keys and press W.


From now on, whenever you press Ctrl, Alt and W Word will open. You can set up shortcuts for as many programs as you like, as long as the combination is not used elsewhere in Windows. Each combination must include two of the following: Ctrl, Alt and Shift, and one other key.