Tuesday’s Tip – Keyboard Shortcuts (Beginner)

Tuesday's Tips provide brief how-to's to help you learn to use the Legacy Family Tree software with new tricks and techniques.

Keyboard Shortcuts (Beginner)

Keyboard shortcuts can save you time when executing the most common tasks in Legacy. There are a lot of keyboard shortcuts but some only work on certain screens. Here is a complete list. These are also in the Help File under Keyboard Shortcuts.

All tab names on the Ribbon bar have an underlined letter.  You can select a tab by holding down the ALT key and pressing the underlined letter.  Once a tab is displayed, you can select a menu option by pressing the underlined letter in the option name.

• ALT + F File Tab  
• ALT + E Edit Tab  
• ALT + A Add Tab  
• ALT + V View Tab  
• ALT + R Report Tab  
• ALT + L Tools Tab  
• ALT + C Search Tab  
• ALT + I Internet Tab  
• ALT + O Options Tab  
• ALT + P Help Tab  

Shortcut Keys for Main Views

• ALT + F1 Legacy Home Tab  
• ALT + F2 Family Tab  
• ALT + F3 Pedigree Tab  
• ALT + F4 Descendant Tab  
• ALT + F5 Chronology Tab  
• ALT + F6 Index Tab  

Shortcut Keys to Bypass Menus on the Main Views

Many menu options have shortcut keys listed next to them.  You can choose a menu command by holding down the CTRL key and pressing the other key.  The shortcut keys listed below are meant to be used only from the main views in Legacy (Legacy Home, Family, Pedigree, Descendant, Chronology, and Index).  On other forms, some of these shortcut keys have other functions.  

• CTRL + A Displays the Ages dialog box.  (On the Legacy Home tab, this shortcut key highlights the entire page contents.)
• CTRL + B Backup a Family File
• CTRL + E Export a GEDCOM File
• CTRL + N Add a New, Unlinked Person.  (On the Legacy Home tab, this shortcut key opens the Home contents in a separate browser window.)
• CTRL + O Open a Family File.  (Not available while on the Legacy Home tab.)
• CTRL + P Opens the Picture Center.  (On the Legacy Home tab, this shortcut key opens the Print window for printing the Legacy Home page contents.)
• CTRL + Q GEDCOM Import
• CTRL + S Display Preferred Startup Family.  (Not available while on the Legacy Home tab.)
• CTRL + T Advanced Tagging
• CTRL + W Web Page Creation
• CTRL + Z Opens the Customize window (ALT + Z also opens the window)

Shortcut Keys in Dialog Boxes

Most command buttons shown in dialog boxes have an underlined letter in their description.  You can click a button by holding down the ALT key and pressing the underlined letter.  This is equivalent to clicking on the button with the mouse cursor.

Other Shortcut Keys

From the Information, Marriage, and Notes windows, you can press F4 to display the Sources window.  From the Information and Marriage windows, you can press F5 to display the Notes window.  From any Note field, you can press F7 to start the spell checker.  From the Information, Marriage and LDS windows, F8 can be used to duplicate field contents from the previously saved record.  You can also press Ctrl-F9 to memorize any location field and F9 to play the memorized field back to any other location field.  (Shift-F10 / F10, Shift-F11 / F11 and Shift F12 / F12 also work the same way to memorize and play back field entries.)

Shortcut Keys for the Source Clipboard

• Alt-1  Opens the source clipboard. 
• Alt-2  Assigns to the current field.  
• Alt-3  Assigns to all non-blank fields.  
• Alt-4  Assigns to the Unspecified area.  

Family and Pedigree View

The following single shortcut keys are available while working in the Family or Pedigree View.  To use the shortcuts, simple type the one-character command.  The commands are executed immediately when you press the letter. 

Single key commands:

• ? Help (help on shortcut keys)  
• F Find (displays Search window)  
• G Go (to RIN #)  
• I Index (displays Name List)  
• M Marriage (displays Marriage List)  
• X Exit (prompts for confirmation to exit Legacy)  

Shortcut Keys on Family View

The following shortcut key combinations are available while working in the Family View.  To use the shortcuts, simple type the two-character command.  The commands are executed immediately after you press the second letter.

Two-Key Commands

• AD Add Daughter  
• AH Add Husband  
• AS Add Son  
• AW Add Wife  
• C1-C9 and CA-CF   Child 1 – Child 9 and Child 10 – Child 15  
• (moves the child to the Husb-Wife level)  
• E1-E9 and EA-EF    Edit Child 1 – Child 9 and Child 10 – Child 15  
• EH Edit Husband  
• EM Edit Marriage  
• EW Edit Wife  
• HP Husband's Parents  
• LD Link Daughter  
• LH Link Husband  
• LS Link Son  
• LW Link Wife  
• ND New Daughter  
• NH New Husband  
• NS New Son  
• NW New Wife  
• WP Wife's Parents  

Shortcut Keys on Other Forms

The following shortcut keys are available while working in various forms in Legacy.  Not all of these are available on all forms.

While in a Note-type field:

• Ctrl-B  Bolds the selected characters or words if some have been highlighted by dragging the mouse over them.  If nothing is currently selected, pressing Alt-B turns on bold mode so that successive text is bolded as you type it.
• Ctrl-I  Italicizes the selected characters or words if some have been highlighted by dragging the mouse over them.  If nothing is currently selected, pressing Alt-I turns on italicize mode so that successive text is italicized as you type it.
• Ctrl-U  Underlines the selected characters or words if some have been highlighted by dragging the mouse over them.  If nothing is currently selected, pressing Alt-U turns on underline mode so that successive text is underlined as you type it.
• Ctrl-S  Superscripts the selected characters or words if some have been highlighted by dragging the mouse over them.  If nothing is currently selected, pressing Alt-S turns on superscript mode so that successive text is superscripted as you type it.
• Ctrl-F  Opens the Find dialog box where you can search for text within the note.
• Ctrl-C  Copies highlighted text to the Windows clipboard.
• Ctrl-X  Cuts highlighted text from the notes field and places it on the Windows clipboard.
• Ctrl-V  Pastes any text currently on the Windows clipboard to the current position in the note field.
• Ctrl-Tab  Inserts a tab character into the note.  (Using tab characters to try to line up columns of information may not result in the desired format when printed on reports.)
• F3   Continues the search to find the next match after starting a search with Ctrl-F.
• Ctrl-Z  Removes any text entered since the last time the note was changed.  (This is a Windows function.  If you are entering text, anytime you exit a field, or do some other function, like spell checking or searching, the undo feature is reset.)
• F6   Pops up the Character Map where you can select one or more special character to insert into the note.  This can be used to select copywrite symbols or other characters not shown on your keyboard.
• F7   Starts spell checking.
• Ctrl-P  Privatizes highlighted text by enclosing it in [[ and ]]
• Ctrl-Space  Removes all formatting from the note including bolding, italicizing, underlining, and superscripting.
• Ctrl-R, Alt-R, F8 Pressing any of these keys works the same as clicking the Repeat button which repeats the field contents previously saved on the same type of form.

 
Isn't this fun! I don't use all of the shortcuts but I do have quite a few that I use all of the time. I like anything that will save me time.

Find tech tips every day in the Facebook Legacy User Group. The group is free and is available to anyone with a Facebook account.

For video tech tips check out the Legacy Quick Tips page.  These short videos will make it easy for you to learn all sort of fun and interesting ways to look at your genealogy research.

Michele Simmons Lewis, CG^® is part of the Legacy Family Tree team at MyHeritage. She handles the enhancement suggestions that come in from our users as well as writing for Legacy News. You can usually find her hanging out on the Legacy User Group Facebook page answering questions and posting tips.