Gnome Keyboard Shortcuts

Accelerate your Gnome keyboard navigation with these shortcuts. You should master these if you are orca screen reader user along with Orca keyboard shortcuts.

• Global Keyboard Shortcuts



• Alt+F1 Open the Main Applications Menu


• Alt+F2 Open the Run Application dialog.


• Print Screen Take a screenshot of the entire screen.


• Alt+ Print Screen Take a screenshot of the window that currently has focus.


• F1 If the focused element is an application window or dialog, this keyboard shortcut opens the Help for the application.


• Ctrl+F1 If the focused element is a panel or application window, this keyboard shortcut switches the display of tooltips for the window or panel objects on and off.


• Shift+F10
  Open a popup menu for the element that has focus (if a popup menu exists for that element).


• Tab
  Give focus to the next element or control.


• Shift+Tab
  Reverse the navigation direction and give focus to the previous element or control.


• Ctrl+Tab
  Give focus to the next element or control if the Tab key has a specific purpose in a control.


• arrow keys Navigate within an element or control.


• spacebar Activate the element or control that has focus.For example, if the current control is a button, this action is the equivalent of clicking on the button with a mouse.


• Esc
  Close a window, menu, or drawer.


• F7
  Switch to caret navigation mode. Caret navigation mode enables you to use the keyboard to select text.


• Ctrl+Alt +D
  Temporarily hide all windows and give focus to the desktop background.


• Ctrl+Alt +Tab
  Display a popup window with icons that represent the desktop background and the panels. Press and hold Ctrl+Alt and continue to press Tab to switch the focus between the desktop background and the panels.


• Navigating Windows


• Alt+Tab
  Display a popup window with icons that represent each window.


• Alt+Esc
  Raise each window in turn until you reach the window you want.


• Alt+F6
  Cycle between windows belonging to the current application (eg, a multiple document interface application like Text Editor).


• Alt+ spacebar
  Open the Window menu.


• Alt+F4
  Close the window.


• Alt+F9
  Minimize the window.


• Alt+F10
  Maximize the window.


• Alt+F5
  Restore a maximized window to its original size.


• Alt+F7
  Start the move operation.


• arrow keys
  Move the window 10 pixels at a time in the direction of the arrow key.


• Ctrl + arrow keys
  Move the window one pixel at a time in the direction of the arrow key.


• Shift + arrow keys
  Move the window in the direction of the arrow key and align it with the edge of the nearest window, panel or screen edge.


• spacebar
  Complete the move operation, leaving the window in the current position.


• Esc
  Cancel the move operation, restoring the window to its original position.


• Alt+F8
  Start the resize operation.


• arrow keys
  Resize the window in the direction of the arrow key.


• spacebar
  Complete the resize operation, leaving the window at the current size.


• Esc
  Cancel the resize operation, restoring the window to its original size.


• F6
  Give focus to the next pane.The system gives focus to the control that last had focus in the pane.


• F8
  Give focus to the first resize handle in the window.The resize handle is displayed between the panes and enables you to resize the panes.Press F8 again to give focus to the next resize handle.


• Navigating Applications


• F10
  Open the first menu on the application menubar.


• Alt + access key
  Open the menu that is associated with the access key

access keys
Select the menu item that is associated with the access key.

• left arrow and right arrow
  Switch focus between the menus on the menubar.


• up arrow and down arrow
  Move focus into a menu.


• Esc
  Close the open menu and give focus to the control that had focus before the menubar.


• Ctrl+O
  Open the file selector dialog.


• Ctrl+S
  Open the Save dialog.


• Ctrl+L
  Open a Location dialog, enabling you to type the name of a file that you want to open or save.


• Ctrl+P
  Open a Print dialog, if available.


• Ctrl+C
  Copy highlighted text to the global, application-spanning clipboard.


• Ctrl+X
  Cut highlighted text to the global, application-spanning clipboard.


• Ctrl+V
  Paste text from the global, application-spanning clipboard to the current cursor position.


• Alt+access key
  Activate or select a control.


• Tab
  Give focus to the next control.


• Ctrl+Page Up
  Move to the next page/tabbed section of the dialog.


• Ctrl+Page Down
  Move to the previous page/tabbed section of the dialog.


• Esc
  Cancel/dismiss the dialog.


• Return
  Perform the default action for the dialog.


• Navigating Folders


• arrow keys
  Select the next or previous file or folder in the direction of the arrow key.


• Ctrl + arrow keys
  Give focus to the next or previous file or folder but do not select the item.

spacebar
Open the focused file or folder.

• Ctrl + spacebar
  Select the item that currently has focus.


• Home
  Select the first file or folder within the current folder.


• End
  Select the last file or folder within the current folder.


• backspace
  Open the current folder's parent folder.


• Shift-F10
  Open a file or folder popup menu.


• Ctrl-F10
  Open the enclosing folder's popup menu (equivalent to right-clicking on the view pane background).


• F6
  Switch focus between the side pane and the view pane.


• Shift+F10
  Open the side pane popup menu.



• Caret Navigation Mode


• F7
  Switch to caret navigation mode [Yelp-only].


• left arrow
  Move one character to the left.


• right arrow
  Move one character to the right.


• up arrow
  Move up one line.



• down arrow
  Move down one line.



• Ctrl + left arrow
  Move to the beginning of the previous word.



• Ctrl + right arrow
  Move to the end of the next word.



• Page Up
  Scroll up one page of content.



• Page Down
  Scroll down one page of content.



• Home
  Move to the beginning of the current line.



• End
  Move to the end of the current line.



• Shift + arrow keys
  Move from the current position to the destination position, selecting all text between the two positions.



• Tab
  Move focus to the next focusable control.



• Shift+Tab
  Move focus to the previous focusable control.



• Enter Activate a button, link or other control
.