Keyboard shortcut of the week: Windows 7 Taskbar

After a long hiatus, keyboard shortcut of the week returns to 'Bloody Computer!' This week, we will look at new features of the Windows 7 taskbar.

You can open any program on the taskbar by holding the Windows key [shown right] and pressing the item number on the taskbar. For example, to open Internet Explorer on the following taskbar you would press Windows Key + 1. The calculator is Windows Key + 2, and so on.


If Internet Explorer is already running, pressing Windows Key + 1 will open that session. To start a new instance of the web browser press Shift + Windows Key + 1.

You can also shift focus to the taskbar using Windows Key + T. You can then use the left and right cursor keys to cycle through the items and press Enter to open them.

You can pin new programs to the taskbar by right-clicking on the icon and selecting 'Pin this program to the taskbar'. Once the icon is pinned, you can drag and drop it anywhere you like on the taskbar.

How to print two pages per sheet

Cutting down on the amount of paper used in printing not only saves money, but is also more environmentally friendly. Some applications offer the option of printing multiple pages per sheet of paper. In this post I will show you how to print two pages per sheet in MS Word and Adobe Acrobat Reader.

MS Word
Open the print dialogue from the 'File' menu in older versions of Word, or by clicking the Office Button in newer versions (as shown below).


Simply set 'Pages per sheet' to '2 pages' and click 'OK'.



Adobe Acrobat
Open the print dialogue from the 'File' menu.
Change 'Page Scaling' to 'Multiple pages per sheet' and 'Pages per sheet' to '2'.



OpenOffice
I found no easy way to print two pages per sheet in OpenOffice, but you can save the file as a pdf using the 'Export as PDF' tool in the 'File' menu and then open it in Adobe Acrobat and follow the above instructions.