What is a shortcut?

A shortcut is an easy way to start a program or open a folder without having to go to it's permanent location on the hard drive. They are useful to create for programs, files, and folders that you use frequently.

Creating a shortcut

There are several ways to create a shortcut:

• The easiest way is to right click on the item you want to make a shortcut for and drag it to the location you want the shortcut to reside. For instance, if you want to make a shortcut for Microsoft Word on the desktop you would go to the location of the program (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\winword.exe), right click on winword.exe, and drag it to the desktop. When you release the right click it will give some options. You should choose Create Shortcut Here.

• Another way to create a shortcut is to right click on the location you want to create the shortcut. Choose new and then shortcut from the options that appear. The first screen that comes up is asking for the location of the program. You can navigate to the location of the that program by clicking the browse button. Once you have found the file, click Next and give the shortcut a name. Click Finished when you are done.

• You can also create a shortcut by right clicking on the file or folder, and choosing Send to » Desktop (create shortcut). This will create a shortcut to the file or folder automatically on your desktop.

• To modify a shortcut right click on it and choose properties. At this point you can change its target, icon, or start key.