Dont have the manual near me atm, so not sure if its discussd in there. Well, an item/spell has to be in your favorites menu to be hotkeyed. Highlight it and then press the desired key (1-8) you want to bind it to.
Wow, so that's how you do it, huh?
I had just noticed today that when I tried to set a function to a number (1) it said "reserved" or something like that. I tried to set it in all the ways other games do - holding down a number, pressing CTRL+number, ALT+number and nothing worked. Wow thanks for the info, this will definitely save me some mucking about in my inventory for weapons, potions, etc. (which always takes some of the sense of urgency out of combat).
