How To: Nokia N900 Keyboard Shortcuts

Unlike the N97, the Nokia N900 takes advantage of its QWERTY keyboard and utilises some helpful shortcuts to allow for certain actions or to just make some a bit quicker.

Here I’ll compile the keyboard shortcuts for the N900. I don’t know them all yet, some I only picked up yesterday thanks to your tips [some, like 11/12 found by accident in seeing what happens if I did Ctrl+Alt+Del], so if you know some I’ve missed out, I’d love to add them please ;).

1. Caps Lock
2. Secondary Symbols/Numbers
3. Additional Symbols Menu
4. Highlight Text
5. Copy Text
6. Paste Text
7. Print Screen
8. Quick search for contacts
9. Quickly go back a page in web browser
10. Lock phone (alternative to lock switch)
11. Quick Multitask View
12. Delete lines of text without highlighting
13. Scrolling in web browser

The image below is just for clarification. I’m calling ‘Function’ key “alt” and backspace “delete” btw.

Note I’ll be adding pictures/screenshots soon to this post but have lectures and an exam to go to. On the upside, it’s Friday ^_^.

1. Caps Lock

To use capital letters either press

Shift once and the letter you want

or

Shift twice to turn on Caps Lock – all future letters will be in CAPITAL

you should see a message “Caps Lock on”

to turn Caps Lock off, just press shift again

2. Secondary keys (Symbols/Numbers Row)

To access the alternative keys, e.g. on “D “we have “#” press

Alt and the symbol, e.g “Alt” and “D” we get  #

or

Alt twice

you should see “Fn is locked”

3. Additional Symbols Menu

Not all the symbols can be used via the tip above. e.g. [SQUARE BRACKETS]. You can access secondary symbols by pressing

Alt first and then Ctrl (maybe just start with Alt and roll your thumb to Ctrl)

You should see a grid of additional symbols

4. Highlight text

You can either use the touch screen or

Hold Shift  and left/right arrow

depending on the direction of where your cursor begins.

To select a bigger block of text

Hold Shift  and up/down arrow

You can then use the left/right arrow to refine selection.

If you want to highlight text in web browser that’s not in text editor

Swipe from left of the screen, an arrow cursor in a square pops up. Press it again to hold, then just drag and highlight [you can copy and paste using tips 5 and 6]

5. Copy text

After highlighting text just:

Hold Ctrl and “C” simultaneously

You may get a notification saying “Copied” across your screen

6. Paste text

After copying text :

Hold Ctrl and  “V” simultaneously

7. Print Screen

This turns what you see on the N900’s  screen into a picture – no third party apps necessary. Just:

Hold Ctrl and Shift and “P” simultaneously

8. Quick search for Contacts

When in desktop view, just

Start typing name of contact via keyboard

The contacts window will appear instantly

9. Instantly go back a page in the Web Browser

If you misspress a link, you might just want to go back a page instantly, and not go through the carousel of your browsing history. If so just press

Delete

And you’ll go back to the previous page.

10. Lock Phone

This technically isn’t using the keyboard but it’s a nice button shortcut alternative to the lock switch. Just press

On twice

11. Quick Multitask View

To view your multiple windows without having to press the button on screen, when you have an app running

Ctrl and Delete

You’ll instantly switch to view the live thumbnails of any open application.

This means you don’t have to exit full screen view of the web browser to switch windows.

12. Delete Lines of text without highlighting

To quickly delete whole lines of text without holding the delete button or highlighting a line of text:

Hold Ctrl and Shift and Delete [Simultaneously]

You’ll delete blocks texts one line at a time.

13. Scrolling in Web Browser

Of course, you can just swipe the screen. Alternatively you can press

Space

This scrolls down a several lines at a time.

or

Arrows

This scrolls as you hold in a particular direction

_________-

I remember there was another shortcut (something plus X to bring up X-terminal, but I highly doubt that you won’t know that shortcut already if you know what X-terminal is for)

OK – forgot about this post -for  even more list of tips, Nokia Experts has a great bunch of N900 keyboard shortcuts ^_^

Tags: Hints, Keyboard, Keyboard Shortcuts, Linux, Maemo 5, N900, Nokia, Nokia N900, Nseries, Shortcut, Tips and Tricks

Category: How to:, Maemo, Nokia, Nseries