How to Create a Windows Keyboard Shortcut

Recently I have needed to convert web pages saved in non-UTF-8 encoding into UTF-8 encoding. I was using Windows Notepad to open files and then save them with the same file name (using the Save As command) but selected “UTF-8” in the encoding field (It defaults to ANSI). I noticed, however, that I needed to close Notepad and reopen it every time I wanted to do this, otherwise weird characters would appear when I try to view the converted file. So, instead of looking for and clicking on the Notepad icon for each file, I created a keyboard shortcut key to do this.  This works for any program. Here’s how:

1. Go to Windows Notepad and right click and select “Properties” as shown below.

windows shortcut

2. Put your cursor in the Shortcut Key field and hit your shortcut keys by hitting CTRL + ALT + X where X is the key you want.

In this example, I chose N since it’s the first letter in Notepad.

windows shortcut

3. Click OK and try it out by clicking CTRL+ALT+N

Note:

You cannot use the ESC, ENTER, TAB, SPACEBAR, PRINT SCREEN, SHIFT, or BACKSPACE keys to create a keyboard shortcut.