CTRL + Z = Undo!

You were working on a document the other day and made a big mistake. You messed up just about the whole thing and it took forever to get it back to the way it was. Is there a better way?

Yes.

First, if you make a mistake, hit CTRL-Z. In most programs, that will undo whatever it was that you just did. Bad thing is that many programs only give you one or two of these undos. Then you're stuck - or are you?

One clever way to make sure you can always go back is to save your file frequently - especially if you're about to make some big changes. Then if you really mess up good, just close the file and DON'T SAVE IT.

When you open it back up, you'll be back to the way it was when you last saved. This is really handy if you're playing around with image manipulation and are "testing" different effects.

If you want to take this to the next level, you may want to save your file under a different name each time. After all, when it comes to computers, you just can't be too paranoid :-)

I know, this all may seem incredibly obvious, but I can't tell you the number of times I've seen people waste a half an hour trying to get a document back to the way it was originally when they could have just used this tip.

Posted in: Keyboard Tips