It took me a long time to get used to the tabbed pages in Internet Explorer 7, but I’m starting to learn some of the shortcuts that bring them to life. Try some of these tips!

  • Right-click on links and click on Open In New Tab, OR hold the Ctrl key while you click, to open a page on a new tab in the same Internet Explorer window.
  • Use Ctrl-T to open a tab on a blank window, and Ctrl-W to close a tab.
  • If you have several windows open in tabs, click on the Quick Tabs button at the top, to the left of the tabs, for a visual look at all open pages.
  • Next to the Quick Tabs button is a down arrow that displays a Tab List – a short menu with the page titles of all open tabs.
  • Use Ctrl-Tab to move from one tab to the other without taking your hands off the keyboard (like using Alt-Tab to switch between programs).

Internet Explorer 6 had a fairly clumsy menu item that would change the font size of text on screen – occasionally helpful but more often screwing up the page layout. Down in the lower right corner of the Internet Explorer 7 window is a far more helpful zoom control. Click on it to zoom in and out of the entire page, or click on the down arrow by it to pick a specific zoom level.

Zoom shortcuts: hold the Ctrl key down and use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out, or use Ctrl-plus and Ctrl-minus on the keyboard.

Not bad, eh?

Share This