About Shortcut Press

Each Shortcut Press guide is a digital download: one .zip file containing a PDF guide and a set of practice files. The PDF takes one program and works through it skill by skill. Each skill is explained, broken into numbered steps with annotated illustrations, and then practiced in exercises that come with worked solutions. The practice files are the starter documents, spreadsheets, footage or project files those exercises use.

There are seven guides, each covering one program, and a library that includes all seven. You can see the full list on the home page.

A written step stays on the page while you carry it out. You can read it, try it, read it again, and move on when you are ready, without scrubbing back through a recording. You can search a PDF for the one technique you need, print the pages you want beside your keyboard, and come back to a reference table months later.

Working on real files matters too. Reading about a lookup or a modifier only goes so far; doing it in a spreadsheet or a scene is what makes the steps make sense. That is why every exercise comes with its own practice file, so you are never practicing on your own work and never starting from an empty screen.

• Explanation first. What the skill is and when you would use it.
• Steps second. Numbered instructions, with illustrations annotated to show where to look, and keyboard shortcuts shown the way you press them, like Ctrl Z.
• Practice third. An exercise that uses one of the practice files.
• A worked solution. Every step of the solution, not just the final answer, so you can see where your work and the solution part ways.

The guides are self-study material. There is no video, no live instruction, no tutoring, and no feedback on your work. The guides don't include any software, and they don't come with certificates. What you buy is the .zip: the guide and the files.

Software makers update their programs, and sometimes an update moves a menu or renames a button. When an update changes the steps in a guide, the guide is revised, and updated files are free to anyone who bought it.

Shortcut Press is independent. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any software maker. Software names appear on this site only to identify the programs the guides cover.

Questions about a guide, an order or a group license are welcome. Contact us through the Contact page.