Microsoft Paint Keyboard Shortcuts

Paint is a drawing program you can use to create drawings or edit digital pictures. You can also use Paint to save picture files using different file formats.

ALT
Alt-C	Opens the drop-down menu for Colors.
Alt-E	Opens the drop-down menu for Edit.
Alt-F	Opens the drop-down menu for File.
Alt-H	Opens the drop-down menu for Help.
Alt-I	Opens the drop-down menu for Image.
Alt-V	Opens the drop-down menu for View.
Alt-F4	Closes the drawing.
Alt-Esc	Windows command to switch between windows/opened programs.
Alt-Spacebar	Windows command equivalent to right-clicking on the blue bar at the top of the window.
CTRL
Ctrl-A	Selects the entire canvas, useful before flipping, rotating, stretching, or skewing the entire canvas.
Ctrl-C	Copies the selected area.
Ctrl-E	Brings up the image attributes.
Ctrl-F	Shows a full-screen view of the image.
Ctrl-G	(Only at 6x,8x, or 10x zoom) Shows a grid under the drawing; it is sized by pixels.
Ctrl-I	The fun one, inverts the colors.
Ctrl-L	Removes/Adds the "Color Box"(Color Pallette) at the bottom of the screen.
Ctrl-N	Opens up a new canvas within the same screen. *Will delete current drawing unless you save it.
Ctrl-O	Opens up the "Open file..." screen.
Ctrl-P	Prints the image.
Ctrl-R	Brings up the "Flip/Rotate" tool.
Ctrl-S	Automatically saves your drawing under the name you have it saved as, if not, it will bring up the "Save file as..."
Ctrl-T	Removes/Adds the Main "Tool Box" on the left side.
Ctrl-V	Pastes whatever you have copied or pasted into the top left corner of the screen; if you are zoomed in it will be in the left corner of where you are zoomed in to. *If the selected image being pasted is bigger than the canvas you have, it will automatically be re-sized to fit the image being pasted.
Ctrl-W	Brings up the "Stretch/Skew" Tool.
Ctrl-X	Cuts the selected area, in other words copies the selected area, but takes it off the screen.
Ctrl-Y	Re-does whatever you undid or deleted. In case you feel it looks better that way or are trying to figure out things.
Ctrl-Z	Undoes whatever you just drew with the last click and hold of your mouse. Undoes only up to 3 previous clicks in XP, slightly more in Vista.
Ctrl-PageDown	Zooms out to 1x from zoom.
Ctrl-PageUp	Zooms in to preset zoom.
Ctrl-Shift-N	Clears the entire canvas.
Ctrl- (Minus on num pad)	Makes any of the drawing tools(Including spraypaint) you are drawing with increasingly smaller, smaller than you can select normally.
Ctrl+ (Plus on num pad)	Makes any of the drawing tools increasingly larger, infintely large. When using "Color Select" tool -Selects that color as an auxillary color for use, not a primary or secondary When using any of the drawing tools -Draws in the auxillary color
Holding Shift:
When using the "Line Tool" -Makes a straight line at 90 or 45 degree angles.
When using the "Ellipse Tool" -Makes a perfect circle.
When using the "Rectangle" -Makes a perfect square.
When using the "Rounded Rectangle" -Makes a perfect square with rounded edges.
Other
F10	Changes the cursor of Spraycan, Pencil, Crosshairs, etc.. to a normal pointer cursor until you click the mouse or push a key.
Print Screen	Takes a screenshot and is automatically copied. So after you take a screenshot, it is best to paste it somewhere, usually on a new canvas, before you copy