Tool Tips Redux: IT Staff Recommendations
There was such a great response to the December Tool Tips article that we decided to bring it back. For July’s Take 5 issue, we asked Northwestern IT staff to share more insightful tool tips, power user hacks, and underrated applications with their colleagues. Thank you to everyone who shared a tip. Please continue to share tips as you have them for future articles.
Microsoft at Your Fingertips
PC users can access many core Microsoft features and applications in seconds using the hotkey combination "Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Windows" with various letters. Here are a few examples:
- LinkedIn: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Windows+L
- Word: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Windows+W
- Powerpoint: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Windows+P
- Teams: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Windows+T
– Kelvin Yu Chang, User Support Specialist Associate, Technology Support Services
Live Subtitles for Any Meeting
PowerPoint automatic captions can transcribe your words as you present. You just turn them on, put your presentation in slideshow mode, and now you have live captions in all meetings. – Rachel Goc, Learning Engineer, Teaching and Learning Technologies
Protect Your Phone Privacy
Don't give out your personal cell phone number if you don't want to. The University telephone system can forward incoming calls to your cell phone, and you can use the Cisco Jabber telephone app to make outbound calls that appear to come from your University phone number. – Julian Koh, Director, Telecommunications and Network Services
Powerful Hacks for Windows Power Users
Windows power users can customize their experience with Windows PowerToys. Some features worth mentioning include FancyZones for multi-monitor users, File Explorer add-ons to display various file types, and PowerRename for quickly renaming large sets of files. Also, did you know you can see your entire Windows clipboard history? It can be enabled in settings, and then using the “Windows + V” shortcut, you can see everything you’ve copied. – Kevin Kowalski, Developer, Application Development and Operations
Meet With Teammates in Seconds
Host an instant meeting in Microsoft Teams. In a Teams channel or group chat, look for “Meet” in the top-right corner and begin a meeting without needing to send a link or dial-in information. – Nick Tiemersma, Digital Designer, IT Communications