How to use tabs effectively in IE7

Many people fail to take full advantage of new technology because they just dive right in and do what comes easily and obviously. By taking the time to learn some of the advanced or hidden features, you can save time later on and increase productivity greatly. If and when you first install Internet Explorer 7, you may be tempted to skip the little introduction about tabbed browsing. Here are the shortcuts from the introduction, with the ones I think are most useful in red.

Keyboard shortcuts

Open links in a new tab in the background: CTRL+click

Open links in a new tab in the foreground: CTRL+SHIFT+click

Open a new tab in the foreground: CTRL+T

Open a new tab from the Address bar: ALT+ENTER

Open a new tab from the search box: ALT+ENTER

Open Quick Tabs (thumbnail view): CTRL+Q

Switch between tabs: CTRL+TAB/CTRL+SHIFT+TAB

Switch to a specific tab number: CTRL+n (n can be 1-8)

Switch to the last tab: CTRL+9

Close current tab: CTRL+W

Close all tabs: ALT+F4

Close other tabs: CTRL+ALT+F4

Mouse shortcuts

Open a link in a background tab: Click the middle mouse button on a link

Open a new tab: Double-click the empty space to the right of the last tab

Close a tab: Click the middle mouse button on the tab

See also: Learn more about tabs