Select all text in a document in MS Word

To instantly select all the text in a Word document, hold down the control key and press A.

This can also be achieved by selecting Select All from the Edit menu.

What is a paragraph in MS Word?

A paragraph in Word may be different to the standard grammatical understanding of a paragraph.

Websters classifies a paragraph as:

any section or subdivision of a writing or chapter which relates to a particular point, whether consisting of one or many sentences.

Word considers a paragraph to be anything up to the point where you press the Return key. This means that while a single sentence or group of sentences may still be a paragraph, so could a single character.

For example, while the two sentences above this one would be recognised as a paragraph by both Websters and Word, Word would also consider the next character to be a character:

1

Make sense?

To summarise this, Word considers anything up to the point where you press Return to be a paragraph, whether it´s a single character or a million pages.

Insert a trademark symbol in MS Word

To insert a trademark symbol in MS Word, hold down the Alt and Ctrl keys and press the T key.

Use Format, Style to modify a style in MS Word

You can modify a style in MS Word using the Format, Style option using these steps:

1) Select Style from the Format menu
2) Select the style you want to modify from the list of styles on the left of the dialog box and click the Modify button
3) Click the Format button and you can choose to modify the Font, Paragraph, Tabs, Border, Language, Frame and Numbering.
4) When you have made your changes, click on OK
5) Click Close to accept changes to the style or click Apply to accept changes to the style and apply them to the active paragraph.

What does Word´s AutoCorrect feature do?

Word´s AutoCorrect function corrects common spelling and grammatical errors in the background while you type. Its extremely effective and you may not even be aware that you´re using it (but in most cases you will be by default). Select AutoCorrect from the Tools menu to see the default options.

Format selected text as Small Caps in MS Word

To format the selected text as Small Caps, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the K key.

Apply a style to selected text in MS Word

To apply a style to your selected text in MS Word, select the text, bring up the style list (by clicking the drop down arrow by the side of the Style Box) and select the required style. If you wish to apply all of the paragraph formatting within the style, you must ensure that the entire paragraph (including the paragraph marker) is selected.

Change the case of selected text in MS Word

To change the case of the selected text in MS Word, hold down the Shift key and press the F3 key. Repeated presses will toggle you through Upper Case, Lower Case and Sentence Case.

For more control over the case of text, you can also select Change Case from the Format menu.

Click away before you try to select in MS Word

If you´ve ungrouped an image in MS Word and want to select a small part of it, remember to either click a blank part of the desktop or press the ESC key before you try to select it.

This will ensure that nothing else is selected.

Select a whole table in MS Word

To select a whole table in MS Word, hold down the alt key and double click anywhere in the table.

Continuing numbering in Word

When you´re using Numbered Lists in Word, it can sometimes be frustrating when it doesn´t do what you´d expect.

When you add a new list, Word automatically starts the numbering from 1. If this is what you wanted, then great, but if it´s not, then what do you do? If you´re like most people, you´d try and change it manually, which is a bit of a hit and miss affair (particularly if you change the numbering in the section above it).

As you´re not like most people, you´ll select Bullets and Numbering from the Format menu and tick the box at the bottom of the Numbered tab which says Continue Previous List.

Now Word will continue your list automatically and if you add items in the previous list, your new list will be re-numbered automatically.

Undo the last action in MS Word

To undo the last action in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl key and press the Z key.

Alternatively, you can select Undo (last action) from the Edit menu, or click the Undo arrow (on the Standard Toolbar to the Right of the Format Painter).

Show or hide hidden characters in MS Word

Word contains a large number of hidden characters such as spaces and paragraph markers and while sometimes they can be useful to view, at other times they can be annoying.

To toggle between showing and hiding these characters, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the 8 key (you cannot use the numeric keypad for this shortcut).

Insert a page break with the keyboard in MS Word

To insert a page break with the keyboard in MS Word, position the cursor where you want the break to appear, hold down the Ctrl key and press the Enter key.

Italicise your text easily in MS Word

To italicise text easily in MS Word, select the text, hold down the Ctrl key and press I.

Redo your last action in MS Word

To Redo your last action in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl key and press the Y key.

Alternatively you can select Redo (last action) from the Edit menu or click the Redo button (on the Standard toolbar to the right of the Undo button).

Make your text bold in MS Word

To make your text bold in MS Word, select the text, hold down the Ctrl key and press B.

Insert a nonbreaking hyphen in MS Word

To insert a nonbreaking hyphen in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the Hyphen key.

Apply a style to the current paragraph in MS Word

To apply a style to the current paragraph in MS Word, simply select the required style from the Style list. The Style you select will automatically be applied to the active paragraph.

How can I draw lots of shapes in one go in MS Word?

To draw multiple shapes in MS Word, double click on the required drawing tool. This keeps it selected until you click the button to turn it off.

Select a word with the keyboard in MS Word

To select a word with the keyboard in MS Word, place the cursor at the start of the word, hold down Ctrl and Shift and press the Right arrow.

Move around a Word document one word at a time

When navigating around a Word document using the cursor keys, it can be tedious having to move a character at a time. To speed things up, hold down the ctrl key and the left and right cursor keys will you move you a word at a time.

Insert a copyright symbol in MS Word

To insert a copyright symbol in MS Word, hold down the Alt and Ctrl keys and press the C key.

Repeat the last find in MS Word

To repeat the last find in MS Word, hold down the Alt and Ctrl keys and press the Y key.

Activate the Browse selector in MS Word

The page up and down arrows in MS Word at the bottom of the scroll bar can be used to browse through your document by picture, field, heading and many other things.

To activate the Browse selector either:

1) Click the round circle which sits between the page up and down arrows (if you hold the cursor over it, you´ll see a screen tip telling you it´s the browse selector)
2) Hold down the Alt and Ctrl keys and press the Home key.

Then select the required object and use the up and down arrows to browse through your document. To return to the standard Page Up and Page Down method, select the Page option from the Browse Selector.

Quit Word

To quit Microsoft Word (or indeed any active Windows Application), hold down the Alt key and press the F4 key.

Apply the Symbol font to the selected text in MS Word

To apply the Symbol font to the selected text in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the Q key.

Review text formatting in MS Word

To review the formatting which has been applied to any paragraph in MS Word, hold down the Shift key and press the F1 key, then click on the paragraph you wish to review.

Set 1.5 line spacing from the keyboard in MS Word

To set 1.5 line spacing for the selected paragraphs from the keyboard in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl key and press the 5 key (this will not work with the 5 key on the numeric keypad).

Reduce a hanging indent from the keyboard in MS Word

To reduce a hanging indent from the keyboard in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the T key.

Start AutoFormat from the keyboard in MS Word

To start the AutoFormat tool from the keyboard in MS Word, hold down the Alt and Ctrl keys and press the K key.

Apply the Normal style to the active paragraph in MS Word

To apply the Normal style to the active paragraph in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the N key.

Recoloring clip art in Word

To recolor a piece of clip art in Word 97, ungroup the object, select the piece you would like to recolor and either:

Select the required colour from the drawing toolbar
Right click your selection and choose Format Object, Colours and Lines and Fill Colour.

Multiple level ungrouping in MS Word

If you´ve ungrouped a piece of clip art in MS Word but can´t select the piece you want to (for example you want to select a foot but you keep getting the leg as well), then you may need to ungroup another level.

Select the piece you want and right click - select ungroup from the Grouping menu - if the option is available, then you can ungroup further.

Use the tables and borders toolbar in MS Word

To save time searching through menus in MS Word, make sure that whenever you´re working on tables, you have the tables and borders toolbar visible.

Select the button to the left of the Insert Table button and the toolbar will appear.

AutoFormat works in MS Word

Word has an AutoFormat tool which is generally overlooked, yet it is surprisingly useful.

The tool is found under the Format, AutoFormat and allows you to either review each change as Word makes it or to let it make all the changes in one go.

Give it a go - you may be surprised how effective it is. Even if you need to make a few modifications yourself, it should save you some time.

Apply a Heading 2 style in MS Word

To apply a Heading 2 style in MS Word, hold down the Alt and Ctrl keys and press the 2 key. You must use the standard 2 key rather than the numeric keypad 2 key.

Use spaces when inserting Merge fields in MS Word

When you´re inserting merge fields into your document in MS Word, remember to put spaces between fields which need them. One of the most common mistakes when merging is to forget the space between the firstname and lastname fields.

Use the Outlook Address Book when mail merging in MS Word

Do you use Outlook to store your names and addresses? If you do, then you can use those when mail merging in MS Word - just select Use Address Book from the Get Data option and select the appropriate book.

2. Navigation techniques in MS Word

No matter how big or small your Word documents are, you can dramatically improve your productivity by learning to move around your documents efficiently.

While each shortcut may only save you seconds, you´ll use them so often that they´ll make a big difference.

The section of this site which deals with navigation can be found here.

1. Listen to the voice in MS Word!

Listen to the voice in MS Word.

We all have that little voice in the back of our minds which says "There must be a better way of doing this". (If you don´t think you have one, then the voice I mean is the one which just told you that you don´t have a voice like that.)

The natural tendency when the voice appears is to ignore it, because you´re too busy to listen right now.

When you start to listen to the voice, you will start to identify the areas where your productivity needs to improve.

From there, it´s simply a matter of searching this site to find the answers you need, because if you think there should be a better way, you´ll generally find that there is.

Listen to the voice - the voice gives you the right questions to ask.

Editing Clip Art in MS Word

While it´s sometimes easy to find Clip Art which is close to what you need, it´s difficult to find exactly what you´re looking for. Did you know you can edit clip art in MS Word?

If you select your clip art image and right click it, and select ungroup from the Grouping menu.

Word may ask you if you´re sure (and don´t say yes unless you are) but when you´re done, you can now select and modify the component parts of your image.

Underline words but not spaces in MS Word

To underline the words but not the spaces of your selected text in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the W key.

Select a paragraph with the keyboard in MS Word

To select a paragraph of text with the keyboard in MS Word, place the cursor at the start of the paragraph, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the Down arrow key.

Move around a Word document one paragraph at a time

To move around a Word document one paragraph at a time, hold down the Ctrl key and use the up and down arrow keys.

This can really help to speed up your navigation through your document.

Move to the end of your Word document

To move quickly to the end of your Word document, hold down the Ctrl key and press the End key.

Save changes to a document in MS Word

To save the changes you have made to a Word document, select Save from the File menu, or click the save button, or hold down the Ctrl key and press the S key.

Automatically mark index entries in MS Word

If you regularly have to mark the same index entries, consider using Word´s automark feature.

Create a concordance file containing the words you want to mark (It´s essentially a two column word table but see Word help for advice) and select that when you select Automark from the mark entries dialog box.

Split a Word document

If you want to see or even work in two different parts of a Word document at the same time, you can utilise Word´s Split Document feature.

This can be applied in one of two ways:

1) Hold down the Alt and Ctrl keys and press the S key. Then click the mouse where you want the split to appear or press the enter key .
2) Select Split from the Window menu and click the mouse where you want the split to appear or press the Enter key.

Enter some dummy text fast in MS Word

This is a tip which I use all the time and it´s really useful whenever you want to try something out in Word.

You don´t want to experiment on your real documents, so try this to give you some dummy text whenever you want.

At the start of a new line, type this:

=rand()

And press the Enter key.

Word puts in three paragraphs, each of which contains five sentences of "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog". If the sentence seems familiar, it´s generally used in typing training, because it contains every letter of the alphabet.

You can modify this procedure as follows:

=rand(10,1) will give you 10 paragraphs, each with one sentence.
=rand(5,10) will give you 5 paragraphs, each with 10 sentences and so on.

Use both portrait and landscape within the same Word document

If you need to add landscape oriented pages in a portrait oriented document (or vice-versa)in MS Word. Insert section breaks at the end of the last page before the landscape pages, and at the end of the last of the landscape pages, go into page setup and set the orientation for that section.

Save your document for the first time in MS Word

To save a document for the first time in MS Word, select Save from the File menu (or click the save button, or hold down the Ctrl key and press the S key).

Select a folder, type a name for the file and click Save.

Set line spacing to single from the keyboard in MS Word

To set single line spacing for the selected paragraphs from the keyboard in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl key and press the 1 key (this will not work with the 1 key on the numeric keypad).

Save all open documents in MS Word

To save all open documents in MS Word, hold down the Shift key and click on the File menu. The Save option will have been replaced by a Save All option.

Close all open documents in MS Word

If you have a number of documents open in MS Word and want to close them all, you can do this in one step if you choose.

If you hold down the Shift key and click the File menu, you´ll see that the Close option has been replaced with Close All.

Make sure you use the first sheet with MS Word

If you are mail merging in MS Word from an Excel spreadsheet, make sure that the worksheet which contains the data you wish to merge is the first (leftmost) sheet.

Word will not recognise any other sheets.

Making Word prompt you for Properties

Word´s document properties function can be really useful when searching for documents and if used carefully can save loads of time. Unfortunately that won´t help much if you don´t use it and because it doesn´t ask you to when you save, then most people don´t.

To make Word prompt you to ask for properties when you first save a document, Select Options from the Tools menu. From the Save tab, check the box which says Prompt for document Properties.

The properties screen will now appear the first time you save a document.

Insert rows in MS Word

To add a new row at the end of your table in MS Word, place the cursor in the last cell and press the TAB key. A new row will be added automatically.

Insert a Column Break in MS Word

To insert a Column Break in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the Enter key.

You can also select Break from the Insert menu and choose Column Break.

Move around in a table in MS Word

You can move around in a table in MS Word using the arrow keys, however it is sometimes useful to use the tab key. This moves you across one cell at a time until it reaches the end of a row, then moves you down to the first cell of the next row.

Select a line of text with the mouse in MS Word

To select a line of text with the mouse in MS Word, move the cursor to the left of the text (the cursor will change to a white arrow) and click the mouse. The whole line will be selected.

Activate the Replace dialog box in MS Word

To activate the Replace dialog box in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl key and press the H key.

Alternatively you can select Replace from the Edit menu.

Reduce a left indent from the keyboard in MS Word

To reduce a left indent from the keyboard in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the M key.

What does automatically update mean in MS Word

If you have the Automatically Update option checked for any style in MS Word, any changes you make to text formatted with that style will automatically be incorporated into the style.

This means that if you change one paragraph formatted with the Heading 1 style, the changes you make will automatically be carried out anywhere else in the document where you´ve used the Heading 1 style.

Right align a paragraph from the keyboard in MS Word

To right align a paragraph from the keyboard in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl key and press the R key.

Create a new document in MS Word

To create a new document based on the normal template (Normal.dot) in MS Word, click the New button. It´s the first (leftmost) button on the standard toolbar and looks like a blank page.

Select an entire document with the mouse in MS Word

To select your entire document with the mouse in MS Word, move the cursor into the left margin (you will see it change to a white arrow) and triple click.

Add AutoCorrect entries via the spellchecker in MS Word

If you find yourself always using the spell checker in MS Word to correct the same words, then Word can probably help you speed things up a bit.

One of the options in the spellchecker is AutoCorrect. Click this and then choose the correct spelling - Word automatically includes this in it´s AutoCorrect list and will correct this mistake itself the next time you make it.

Apply a hanging indent from the keyboard in MS Word

To apply a hanging indent from the keyboard in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl key and press the T key.

Apply 12 points of paragraph spacing before the active paragraph in MS Word

To apply 12 points of paragraph spacing before the active paragraph in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl key and press the 0 key (you cannot use the numeric keypad for this shortcut).

What is Paragraph Formatting in MS Word?

There are two distinct kinds of formatting which can be applied in Word:

• Character Formatting


• Paragraph Formatting

Character formatting is a generic term which refers to all kinds of formatting where the smallest component it can be applied to is a single character. A good example of character formatting is Bold, or Italic as these can be applied to individual characters within a word if required.

Paragraph formatting is a generic term which refers to any formatting where the smallest component it can be applied to is a paragraph. An example of paragraph formatting is alignment, as you can only align whole paragraphs, not individual characters within the paragraph.

3. Selection is the key in MS Word

Once you´ve entered some text in MS Word, everything you need to do with that text requires that you select it.

While anyone can select text by clicking and dragging, there are far better ways of selecting different amounts of text.

The section of this site which deals with selecting text can be found here:

Draw your own tables in MS Word

If you need to create a table in MS Word which is more complex than a standard 2x2 or 4x4 table, then try this.

Click the Tables and Borders button (on the toolbar to the left of the Insert Table button) and when the toolbar pops up, the cursor changes to a pencil.

This can be used to draw a new table or edit an existing one. If you want a new column, then draw one in. If you want to add a row, then draw one.

If you want to delete a line, then click on the rubber (next to the pencil on the toolbar) and drag over the line you want to delete.

Speed up boot time

To speed up load time, reduce the number of installed fonts you have in Microsoft Word. When word first opens, it performs a thorough check to see which fonts are installed on your system. If you have too many fonts, Word can take a considerable length of time to open.

Insert a nonbreaking space in MS Word

To insert a nonbreaking space in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the Spacebar.

Insert a page break in MS Word

To insert a page break in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl key and press the Enter key.

You can also select Break from the Insert menu and choose Page Break.

Modify a style in MS Word

To modify a style in MS Word, follow these steps:

1) Select a paragraph which has been formatted with the style you wish to modify
2) Make the required formatting changes to the paragraph using any method you choose
3) With the paragraph still selected, reselect the style from the Style List. A dialog box will appear which will give you two options - either reapply the original style, or Update the style to reflect the changes you have made.
4) Select Update the style to reflect recent changes and click OK.

The style will now be updated to include your changes and anywhere within your document where the style has been used will now reflect those changes.

Apply a Heading style to the active paragraph with the keyboard in MS Word

To apply a heading style (heading 1, heading 2 etc) to the active paragraph in MS Word, hold down the Alt and Shift keys and press the Left or Right Arrow keys.

The style which is selected will depend on the other styles used in your document, but holding down the Alt and Shift keys and repeatedly pressing the Left arrow key will step you through the Heading Styles until you get to Heading 1. Holding down the Alt and Shift keys and repeatedly pressing the Right Arrow key will step you through in the other direction until you reach Heading 9.

Merge to an email in MS Word

You´re not just limited to merging to a new Word document. If you want to send personalised emails to people, then you can use mail merge for that too.

Set everything up as usual, but before you actually start the merge, select Electronic Mail under the Merge To: dialog box. This will allow you to merge directly to an email.

Start drawing from the centre of a shape in MS Word

To start drawing from the centre of a shape rather then a corner in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl key while you draw.

Apply a List style in MS Word

To apply a List style to the current paragraph in MS Word, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the L key.

Go to the last place you were working in MS Word

When you open a Word document, it automatically opens up at the start of the document. If you were working somewhere in the middle of your document, then it can take ages to scroll your way through to the correct bit.

To automatically move to the last place you were working, hold down the Shift key and press the F5 key.

Select an entire table in MS Word

To select an entire table in MS Word, hold down the Alt key and double click anywhere inside the table.

Select a paragraph with the mouse in MS Word

Selecting a paragraph with the mouse can be tricky and time consuming in MS Word - it is easy to either start or finish in the wrong place, or to let go of the mouse button at the wrong time.

The easy way to select a paragraph is to triple click anywhere inside the paragraph. The whole paragraph will now be selected.

Review text formatting in MS Word

To review the formatting which has been applied to any text in MS Word, hold down the Shift key and press the F1 key and then click the mouse on the text you wish to review.