One of the not-so-obvious-to-solve things that I’ve run into while using my Surface over the past few weeks is that neither the Touch Cover keyboard nor the on-screen keyboard have any F keys. This isn’t something that I use a ton, but there are a few things that I do use them for. I really missed them when I needed to do those things.
As an example, I wanted to spell check a Word document. F7? Nope. I had to hunt around in the ribbon until I found it. Later, I wanted to rename a file on the desktop. F2? Bah! Guess I’ll just right-click and rename like the old days.
“Maybe they built it into the Fn key… Fn+1 = F1, right?” I thought. No dice. “What about the Windows key?” Nothing.
Today, I finally broke down and did some Googling. I found this article that revealed the secret. The F keys are Fn options on the top row of keys: mute, volume down, volume up, etc. I tried it out by going to Desktop Mode, selecting an icon, and pressing Fn + Volume Down (F2). Sure enough, it worked. It’s annoying to count out the keys since I don’t them memorized (and I’m not smart enough to read the number keys just below them…), but I’m happy to have them back.
Now I just need to relearn spell check as Fn + Devices. *shrug*
adamprescott.net 