[Strg] + [H] It is the most creative keyboard trick for Windows that everyone should know

You’ll notice if you’ve already found the right key combination when you only needed seconds for previous massive tasks. (PixieMe/Adobe Stock; underverse/Adobe Stock)

Familiar incident: The text document of your choice is open on your desktop, and you can swipe your ten fingers across your computer keyboard, typing that all-important email, the next great educational novel, or your final semester thesis on the groundbreaking shooter Wolfenstein 3D.

Suddenly I noticed: I incorrectly spelled “BJ Brazkowicz” and “BJ Blazkowicz” shooter hero, so I mixed up the “l” and “r”.

Similar situation: You’re sitting down to write an article and you’ve completely forgotten who invented the classic point-and-click adventure “Monkey Island.” Because your ISP of choice is currently letting you down, or your personal library consists exclusively of Tom Clancy novels, you’re lost.

So I put the text placeholder “Otto Normalmensch” where that would actually be the name of the game developer you’re looking for. Because later you will search for the correct name and install it (spoiler: the inventor of Monkey Island is called “Ron Gilbert”).

And now? After some time, you will learn that the hero of the shooter writes himself “Blazkowicz” and that the progenitor of the adventure is called “Ron Gilbert”. Now you’ve entered the misspelled name or outdated placeholder into your document dozens of times – and now you have to manually correct each word very carefully?

Oh no! There’s a simple trick that allows you to exchange all the words (or entire sentences) you need to review with each other using just a keyboard shortcut.

My innovative Windows shortcut: Soon you won’t want to do without it

Long introduction, useful added value. I don’t want to hold you back any more than 3D Realms did for their fans with “Duke Nukem Forever” (yes, that joke has a beard).

If you open a Word word processing program, an Excel spreadsheet, a PowerPoint presentation tool, or similar applications on a Windows computer, simply use this key combination to open the Find and Replace function.

[Strg] + [H]

The corresponding window should now open. You must now enter the word or sequence of words you wish to find in the Search field. In the Replace With field below, type the word you want to replace the word in Find For. Note: You can also replace entire sentences with individual letters if you wish.

Relevant: The Search field shows you how many times the term you’re looking for appears in your document. In the Find and Replace window, you can now use the Replace All button to replace all Search terms in the document with those in Replace From. Or you can use the “Replace” button and switch between the found locations individually using the “Forward” and “Back” buttons.

If you look, you’ll find it – thanks to just two keyboard keys.