If SQL Server Management Studio is your primary tool for writing your TSQL, then you need to learn keyboard shortcuts to be more efficient.
Keyboard shortcuts are a combination of one or more keys that when entered together perform some task, that would normally take a mouse click, or multiple commands to accomplish. There are many different types of categories of keyboard short cuts, toolbar, menu, window management and cursor movement to name a few.
- F5 – Executes TSQL script
- CTRL+N – Opens a new query window using the existing connection
- CTRL+K+C – Comments out a set of lines highlighted
- CTRL+K+U – Uncomments a set of lines highlighted
- CTRL+SHIFT+U – Converts highlighted characters to upper case
- CTRL+SHIFT+L – Converts highlighted characters to lower case
- CTRL+F – Brings up the search window
- CTRL-HOME –Repositions the cursor at beginning document
- CTRL-END – Reposition the cursor to end of document
- CTRL+G – Allows you to jump to a specific line in a script
These is are my 10 favorite, most-used shortcuts. If you’d like to see all of the keyboard shortcuts, you can find them here.
Gregory A. Larsen is a DBA at Washington State Department of Health (DOH). Greg is responsible for maintaining SQL Server and other database management software. Greg works with customers and developers to design and implement database changes, and solve database/application related problems. Greg builds homegrown solutions to simplify and streamline common database management tasks, such as capacity management.
