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It’s time for Google Talk tips & tricks!

Written by: Peter Jalbert on Saturday, September 3rd, 2005
Posted to: Google,IM/Chat/Talk,VoIP
11 comments, add yours!
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Shortcuts

- CTRL + Mousewheel up/down: Change the font-size in a conversation window.
- CTRL + E: Center align text in a conversation window.
- CTRL + R: Right align text in a conversation window.
- CTRL + L: Left align text in a conversation window.
- F9: Open Gmail compose page to send an email to your friend.
- F11: Start a call with your friend.
- F12: End the current call.
- ESC: Close the current conversation window.
- ALT + ESC: Minimize the current window.
- CTRL + SHIFT + L: Switch between points, numbers, letters, capital letters, roman numbers and capital roman numbers.
- TAB: Switch between multiple chat windows.
- CTRL + I: Same as TAB.
- SHIFT + TAB: Same as TAB but in reverse order.
- CTRL + TAB: Same as SHIFT + TAB.

Others

- A message is restricted to 32767 characters.
- Certain smileys are recognized by Google Talk and will be highlighted in blue color.
:-| :-O :-x :-P :-D ;-) :-( :-) B-) :'( :| :O :x :P :D :) :( :)
- To bold text in a Google Talk conversation, put a * around the word(s). Ex: example: Care for a *date*? –> Care for a date?
- To italicize text in a Google Talk converstation, put a _ around the word(s). Ex: example: Care for a _date_? –> Care for a date?
- You cannot bold nor italicize more than 100 characters at a time. If you exceed the limit, the desired effect will not take place.

- You can right click on the message notification pop-up window to close it.

- To change the display name on Google Talk, you need to go to Gmail account properties and change it there.
- In your away message you can add a website URL, and it will be clickable in conversation windows.

A hidden game uncovered in Google Talk:

Open the about dialog box right-clicking on the Google Talk icon in the windows taskbar. In the about screen you can see ‘play 23 21 13 16 21 19 . 7 1 13 5′. Each number represents a letter. a=1, b=2, c=3 … When you decrypt this message you get: ‘play wumpus.game’. To play the game, invite wumpus.game@gmail.com as a friend, then type “Play”. You’ll now start a game of Hunt the Wumpus.
NOTE: Currently for some unknow reason the wumpus.game game bot seem to be offline.

If you know any Google Talk tips & tricks, please post them here in a comment.

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11 Responses to “It’s time for Google Talk tips & tricks!”

  1. # Buckyon 11 Aug 2007 at 12:35 pm

    To bold and italicize, do this * and this _ in the beginning and end.

  2. # Buckyon 11 Aug 2007 at 12:35 pm

    To bold and italicize put * and _ in front of your word or sentence and in the back.

  3. # Torion 11 Sep 2007 at 9:23 pm

    it you put ^ on either side of some text (the same way you use _ for italic and * for bold) it will turn blue

  4. # Chalkson 01 Oct 2007 at 2:30 pm

    type in =p then send and see what happens

  5. # ahmedessawyon 18 Nov 2007 at 6:20 am

    Line Breaks : Hold down shift and press enter to give a line break in the gtalk IM window. In this way you can write your message in multiple paragraphs.

  6. # ahmedessawyon 18 Nov 2007 at 6:21 am

    Startup parameters (go to Start/Run and type “c:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe” /one_parameter_from_the_list_below)

    * /nomutex: allows you to open more than one instance of Google Talk.
    * /register: write Google Talk settings in the registry.
    * /checkupdate: check for new version.
    * /factoryreset: revert to default settings.
    * /mailto email@gmail.com: send an email with Gmail.
    * /diag: start Google Talk in diagnostic mode.

    this from :
    http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/04/google-talk-tips-tricks.html

  7. # Devon 02 Jan 2008 at 7:28 am

    put text between ~ and u ll get text in Devnagari

  8. # mollyon 07 Jan 2008 at 5:23 pm

    another trick is if you type in “:(:)” without the quotation marks. it’ll be a pig on the screen

  9. # Monkeyon 19 Jan 2008 at 1:03 pm

    make a monkey:
    :( |)

  10. # Mohit Dagaon 25 Apr 2008 at 3:15 am

    My display name in gtalk doesn;t seem to change wat do i do abt it>???

  11. # birenon 12 Oct 2008 at 5:19 am

    Q. how to change name(profile) in gtalk… pls help?

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