Do you ever find yourself wasting precious indexing time moving your hand back and forth from the keyboard to the mouse just to perform simple tasks? In FamilySearch indexing, you can complete many tasks in two or three different ways. You may select options from menus, click on icons, or use keyboard shortcuts.
A keyboard shortcut is a series of keys pressed in a certain order to perform a specific function. Without shortcuts, these tasks require you to move your hand from the keyboard to the mouse and back to the keyboard again. With shortcuts, you can keep your hands on the keyboard and speed up the indexing process without sacrificing quality.
Have you tried these favorite shortcuts?
| Shortcut | PC | Mac |
| Move to next field (or line, if you are at the end of a line) | Tab or Enter | Tab or Enter |
| Move to previous field (or line, if you are at the start of a line) | Shift+Tab or Shift+Enter | Shift+Tab or Shift+Enter |
| Accept a field value (for quality check) | Ctrl+T | Cmd+T |
| Open the look-up list for a field | Ctrl+F | Cmd+F |
| Ditto a field, or copy the same field from a previous record | Ctrl+D | Cmd+D |
You may want to print a complete guide of shortcuts to keep by your computer while you index. This document shows a number of indexing tasks with their corresponding icons and keyboard shortcuts. The plus sign (+) indicates that keys must be held down until the last key is pressed.
These tips may be simple, but a few seconds saved here and there add up over time. You can use that saved time to index even more names so descendants can discover their ancestors and their stories through your indexing efforts. Thank you for all you do.
Note for Mac users: Mac users will need to make sure the cursor is not live in the field for the keyboard shortcuts to work. Press the right arrow, then the left arrow (or the left arrow, then the right arrow), and then use the keyboard shortcut.
