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The
Miracle of Control Z
Q.
Dear Tech Wizard,
Help!
I
was typing along and then all of a sudden my entire document just disappeared. I
spent hours typing it and now it is gone. This isn’t the first
time this has happened. Once, I lost an irreplaceable portion of a Word document
that I spent hours creating and came close to throwing my computer out the
window afterward.
I
also remember another time when I was typing a lengthy E Mail that took me a
very long time to write. All I did
was highlight some text and hit the wrong button, and my entire letter simply
vanished from the screen. I would really like to avoid this nasty problem in the
future. Please advise.
Signed,
Tech
Savvy Wannabe
A.
Dear Wannabe,
The
next time this happens, stop, take a few deep breaths and discover the Secret of
Control Z, also known as "Undo" (located on the edit menu).
For
example, let’s say that you are typing a Word document and somehow your entire
document vanishes into thin air.(I have seen cases where my clients have lost
hundreds of pages of work in just a few keystrokes).
The
next time this happens, STOP. If you type anything else this trick may not work.
Simply hold down the CTRL button
and then hit the letter Z (CTRL
+Z). What you feared was lost forever will magically, instantly reappear. The
computer that you love/hate will simply undo the last step that you made.
To
hopefully avoid future heartache, it helps to understand exactly why this
phenomenon occurs in the first place.
Here
is what happens. Simply put, you probably hit the CTRL
+ A keys instead of the Shift + A
keys as you were typing. Most likely, you wanted to type a capital A when your
pinky slid down from the shift key and hit the CTRL key by mistake.
Here is the problem. CTRL + A is a shortcut that basically means
highlight ALL (as in your entire document).
Now
comes the disappearing act. After
hitting the CTRL + A by mistake
(highlighting your entire document) the very next key you hit--any key at
all--deletes everything! This all
happens very quickly and most of the time, you are not even consciously aware
that your document has been highlighted until it is deleted.
Try
experimenting with the CTRL + Z function on a test document with a few lines of
text and discover for yourself just how it easy it is. Simply type out some
text, highlight it, delete it, and then hit control Z.
To
go a little deeper into past mistakes, you can actually keep hitting the CTRL +
Z repeatedly and your computer will “Undo” multiple levels. This holds true
in most Microsoft programs. To avoid hitting the panic button in the future, try
experimenting with a test document to get the hang of undoing consecutive levels.
Keep
in mind this general fact: Whenever
text is highlighted for any reason, and you hit any key on the keyboard, your
computer will delete the highlighted text, whether it is the spacebar, the Enter
key or another letter. Learning
this tip will save you valuable time and energy not to mention eliminating a
great deal of frustration.
Signed,
Tech Wizard
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