What IS the Difference Between the Alt- and Ctrl- Keys?
In a recent article in the Lawyers PC, Dan Harmon recounted in harrowing detail the painful experience of eaching a total novice enough about computers to produce something as basic as a simple e-mail. I have been through a similar, learning-curve experience with my octogenarian father. Over the past year, he has developed enough rudimentary computer skills to become a viable participant in the family e-mail network. But, he had an enormous advantage when he started out: He knew how to type! Decades of experience on an old Underwood typewriter proved an invaluable asset when he sat down in front of a computer for the first time in his life. Therefore, if you agree to teach a family member or friend about computers, insist on one thing: She must know how to type. If you ask your friend Joan to type her name and she says, "Where's the J key", stop what you are doing and tell her to come back in one month after she has taken a typing class on a regular, electric typewriter at a local business school.
When she protests that she does not have the time, cite Light On: Law Practice Math. Suppose that Joan invests 20 hours in becoming a reasonably competent touch typist. Assume also that this training allows her to save only one minute per day in comparison to the hunt-and-the-peck method to which she would otherwise have been condemned for the rest of her life. (A ridiculously conservative estimate of the benefit of learning to touch-type.) Nevertheless, that paltry sixty seconds a day equals five minutes per week and more than four hours per year. If Joan practices law for more than five years, she will have back her 20 hours and will reap the reward of her initial investment year after year after year. If you understand Light On: Law Practice Math, you now have the perfect squelch for Joan's I-don't-have-the-time excuse. Say to her, "Instead of thinking about the twenty hours you need to find now, think about where you will you, year in and year out, those precious four hours which you will squander by not being a touch-typist?"
Let us presume that Joan heeds your advice and learns basic typing skills. She still has much rudimentary knowledge to acquire. For my Dad, despite his decades of experience at a typewriter keyboard, the arrow keys, cursor, and mouse pointer were a mystery. And, we have not even talked about the F keys or Ctrl and Alt! But, I know that one day, as we introduce him to word processing, he is going to ask, "What is the difference between Ctrl and Alt?" The answer lies in re-visiting an old friend: the Shift key.
The Shift key lends itself to intuitive understanding even to the novice. It "shifts" us from lower case to upper case and allows one key, say the A key, to serve two functions. (On Dad's old Underwood, you could actually feel the whole set of keys lift when you pressed down hard on the cumbersome Shift key.) With a computer, you no longer have that tactile reminder of what the Shift key does, but the concept -- two different kinds of A's from one key -- lingers on. In contrast, calling those two new keys on a computer keyboard "Ctrl" and "Alt" does not impart the same intuitive understanding. So, what are they and what is the difference between them?
To answer the question, put their names aside and try to understand their function. If we tap the A key we get a lower-case "a". If we do Shft-A, we get an "A". That gives you 52 different characters that you can type with just 26 keys. There's a row of numbers up there 0 through 9 and, again, with the Shift key, you get two characters for the price of one. Tap the 5 key and you get, obviously, a 5; do Shift-5 and you get a % sign. You've known that combination since your Underwood days, even though you must admit that there's nothing in common between a 5 and a % sign or a 2 and an @ symbol. You're just used to them. The exact same thinking applies to all those Alt and Ctrl keystroke combinations -- you just have to get used to them!
Way back when people were developing word processors for computers, someone got the bright idea to add a key to the keyboard that like acted like the "Shift" key: Hold it down while tapping the P key and get not a "p" or a "P" but perhaps some other character or, even better, make the computer perform one of its computer things, like printing. Suddenly, with this new Shift-like, "hold-down" key, you had about forty more keystroke combinations! Then, someone got the bright idea that if one "hold-down" key can create all those new keystroke combinations, why not have TWO! So, another new key was added.
But, the new "hold-down" keys needed names. They could have called them "Moe" and "Jack". If they had, then to print in WPWin you would hold down Jack and tap the P key. To drop down the File menu, you would put your finger on Moe and touch the F key. But, they didn't think of "Moe" and "Jack". Instead, whoever got the naming rights by developing this concept chose something that sounded sort of like "Shift". Ergo, Alt [alternative?] and Ctrl [control?] were born.
So, let's do the math. There are 26 letters and 10 numbers. Throw in, say, 6 keys for punctuation and the like and we have 42 keys. Give each of them a second function with the Shift key and we have 84. Endow each of them with two more functions using Alt and Ctrl and we have 168. Surely that should be enough. But, no, computer programmers have decided that you can hold down the Alt and the Shift keys at the same time and you can get 42 more. That's 210. Do the same with Ctrl and Shift for 42 more and a new high of 252. Do the same by holding down Ctrl and Alt together and your possibilities reach 294. [This does not even take into account the four "arrow" keys, a bunch of directional keys like Home and End, and a dozen so-called function keys, F1, F2, etc., all of which can be used in combination with Manny, Moe and Jack, er, I mean, Shift, Alt, and Ctrl.]
A word processing program like WPWin assigns certain functions to certain "hold-down" key combinations: Ctrl-c for Copy, Ctrl-b for Bold lettering, and Ctrl-p for Print. It also assigns to all the F1, F2 keys a bunch of functions such as Shft-F7 to center and Alt-F10 to play a macro. But, even a huge, complex piece of software like WPWin cannot use up all the possible combinations. Consequently, it leaves to you the individual user a cornucopia of possibilities for customizing your keyboard. For example, we have a macro in our office called oad, which takes us to an addresses file that we use all day. Not content to have to invoke Alt-F10 and type o-a-d every time we want to "play" the macro, we have assigned the keyboard combination Alt-A to that macro. Similarly, if you have a macro or a word processing function that you use all the time consider converting it into a hold-down key combination. There are lots of combinations left to be used!
Alt and Ctrl keys can get confusing when you go from one software to another such as from a word processor to a spreadsheet. Although Shft-p will universally get you a P in all software, Ctrl-n will not necessarily get you the same result in all applications. Some uniformity has developed. For example, Ctrl-c is almost always Copy (but, not in Quicken!). However, if you grok the concepts behind the Alt and the Ctrl key, you will have a better chance of dealing with the differences that might arise as you use different types of software.
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Terry W. Light, J.D. © 1999 All Rights Reserved
[Terry W. Light is a 1974 graduate of the Harvard Law School, who practices personal injury law in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.]
Published in the January 1, 2000 issue of the Lawyers PC.
tlight@brann-light.com
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