Zoom For Dummies Cheat Sheet

Zoom For Dummies

At present, Zoom’s most popular feature is its ability to let people host and participate in meetings. With a few clicks of your mouse, you can quickly talk to anyone in the world with or without video. Zoom’s suite of communications tools includes the following products:

Zoom Meetings & Chat
Zoom Video Webinars
Zoom Phone
Zoom Rooms

©Kate Kultsevych

A glossary for Zoom meetings & chat

Want to be a master at Zoom? To get you started, you need to discover some new words. Accelerate your mastery of Zoom Meetings & Chat by knowing these key terms:

App: A third-party tool that extends Zoom’s native functionality. For example, say that you want to integrate your Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar with Meetings & Chat. To do so, download and install the corresponding app. After you do, Zoom displays an icon to others indicating that you’re unavailable when you’re in a meeting. That is, they won’t necessarily bug you when you’re busy.
Channel: An individual bucket with text-based conversations targeted around a single general topic. Channels are containers of information that you can make as specific or general as you like. What’s more, you can customize them until your heart’s content. Zoom allows users to create public and private channels. You can call entire channels to discuss an issue. When you do, Zoom concurrently notifies all channel members. Finally, you can invite others outside of your organization to participate in channels.
External contact: An individual in your Meetings & Chat directory who does not belong to your organization’s Zoom account. Zoom places the word “external” next to all of these folks.
Internal contact: An individual in your Zoom Meetings & Chat directory who belongs to your organization’s Zoom account. Typically, these folks are your colleagues.
Thread: Responses to others’ posts and comments. Threads allow users to target their responses to comments and questions, in the process clarifying their text-based communications.

10 handy shortcuts for Zoom meetings for new users (PC)

Invoke these shortcuts while you’re using Zoom Meetings & Chat on your computer. (In other words, you’re not currently editing a Microsoft Word document or Excel spreadsheet.) Note: If you’ve customized your computer’s global keys and settings, then it’s possible that the shortcuts listed in the table may not work. Finally, Zoom by default grants meeting hosts more power than participants.

Shortcut	Shortcut Result
Alt + F1	Toggle to Zoom’s active-speaker view during the meeting.
Alt + F2	Toggle to Zoom’s gallery view during the meeting.
Alt + M	As the meeting host, mute everyone except yourself during the call.
Alt + I	Open Zoom’s invite window to easily access your options for inviting others to an existing meeting.
Alt + C	Record your current meeting to the cloud (must subscribe to a premium Zoom plan).
Alt + R	Record your current meeting to your computer.
Alt + V	Stop and start video during your meetings.
Alt + F	Enter or exit full-screen mode for your meetings.
Alt + T	Stop and start screensharing during your meetings.
Alt + W	Display the window to end or leave your current meeting; as the host, if you end the meeting, Zoom kicks out all current participants.

10 handy shortcuts for Zoom meetings for new users (Mac)

Invoke these shortcuts while you’re using Zoom Meetings & Chat on your computer. (In other words, you’re not currently editing a Microsoft Word document or Excel spreadsheet.) Note: If you’ve customized your computer’s global keys and settings, then it’s possible that the shortcuts listed in the table may not work. Finally, Zoom by default grants meeting hosts more power than participants.

Shortcut	Shortcut Result
Command + ,	Access the settings for Zoom’s desktop client.
Command + CTRL + V	Start a new Zoom meeting.
Command + CTRL + M	As the meeting host, mute everyone except yourself during the call.
Command cmd + I	Open Zoom’s invite window to easily access your options for inviting others to an existing meeting that you’re hosting.
Command + Shift + C	Record your current meeting to the cloud (must subscribe to a premium Zoom plan).
Command + Shift + R	Record your current meeting to your computer.
Command + Shift + V	Stop and start video during your meetings.
Command + Shift + F	Enter or exit full-screen mode for your meetings.
Command + Shift + S	Stop and start screensharing during your meetings.
Command + W	Display the window to end or leave your current meeting; as the host, if you end the meeting, Zoom kicks out all current participants.

About This Article

About the book author:

Phil Simon is a frequent keynote speaker, dynamic trainer, recognized technology authority, and college professor-for-hire. He is the award-winning author of ten books, most recently Slack For Dummies and Zoom For Dummies. He consults organizations on matters related to communications, strategy, data, and technology. His contributions have appeared in The Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, and many other prominent media sites. He hosts the podcast Conversations About Collaboration.