All the best Microsoft Word keyboard shortcuts. All the best Microsoft Word keyboard shortcuts Word keyboard shortcuts paragraph

If you are familiar with the work of Microsoft Word and even know a few keyboard shortcuts, you might wonder how many there really are. In addition to the already preset keyboard shortcuts for Word, you can set your own for any action that is in the menu and which you use quite often. If we add to this the possibilities modern keyboards With additional buttons to which you can bind a variety of actions and set keyboard shortcuts or multi-button mouse functions, then you have the chance to dramatically increase your productivity. If you are swiping in text Word editor a lot of time, keyboard shortcuts will come in handy.

You don't need to remember all of them. It is enough to learn those to which the most frequently performed actions are tied. It can be various functions formatting - bold, insert footnotes, copy, paste, delete text, undo, and more.

So, our list is quite large - choose from it what you really need and remember these combinations or assign them to additional buttons on your mouse or keyboard.

You can also print the list and use it as a guide until you remember.

Hotkey designation

Remember: we introduced keyboard shortcuts using the following typography rules. The plus sign means that you must press these keys together. The comma means that you must press the buttons in sequence. Therefore, for example, "Ctrl + N" means to hold down the Ctrl button and while holding it, press the N button and then release both buttons. On the other hand, "Alt + N, P" means that you need to hold down the Alt key and press the N key, release the N key, press the P key, and then release all buttons. Although all letters are shown in capital letters, you do not need to press Shift (unless specifically indicated). All letters are Latin, although the keyboard layout during input can be any.

Hotkeys for popular actions in the program

Microsoft Word has many shortcuts for performing actions such as opening, closing, creating a new document, undoing the last action, printing, and more. Let's take a look at the most common ones.

  • Ctrl + N: Create a new document
  • Ctrl + O: Open an existing document
  • Ctrl + S: Save document
  • F12: Open the Save As dialog box
  • Ctrl + W: Save document
  • Ctrl + Z: Cancel last action
  • Ctrl + Y: Perform the last action again
  • Alt + Ctrl + S: Split the window into two windows showing different parts of the document independently of each other. The same keyboard shortcut for canceling window breaking
  • Ctrl + Alt + O: View document structure
  • Ctrl + Alt + N: Switch to reading mode
  • Ctrl + F2: View and Print
  • F1: Open Help
  • Alt + H: Go to "What do you want to do"
  • F9: Update field codes in the current section
  • Ctrl + F: Search in document
  • F7: Run spell checker
  • Shift + F7: Open the thesaurus. If you have chosen a word, Shift + F7 will look for that word in the thesaurus.
  • Alt or F10: Enable or disable button prompts
  • Ctrl + F1: Show or hide the Feed
  • Ctrl + H: Open Find and Replace
  • Alt + A: Open the File tab menu
  • Alt + Z: Go to Home tab
  • Alt + ", 2: Go to Insert tab
  • Alt + L: Go to Design tab
  • Alt + ", 3: Go to Layout tab
  • Alt + R: Go to Links tab
  • Alt + K: Go to the Mailings tab
  • Alt + B: Go to Review tab
  • Alt + J: Go to the View tab

Move around the document

You can use keyboard shortcuts to easily navigate your document. This will save you time if you are working with a large document with many pages and do not want to scroll through it entirely; it will also help you navigate between words and sentences with ease.

  • Left / Right Arrows: Moves the insertion point (cursor) one character left or right
  • Ctrl + left / right arrow: Move one word left or right
  • Up / Down Arrows: Move up or down one line
  • Ctrl + left / right arrow: Move up or down one paragraph
  • End: Move to the end of the current line
  • Ctrl + End: Jump to the end of the document
  • Home: Move to the beginning of the current line
  • Ctrl + Home: Go to the beginning of the document
  • Page Up / Page Down: Move up or down one screen
  • Ctrl + Page Up / Page Down: Move to the previous or next browsing item (after searching)
  • Alt + Ctrl + Page Up / Page Down: Move up or down the current window
  • F5: Open the Find and Replace dialog box on the Go tab so you can quickly jump to a specific page, section, bookmark, and the like.
  • Shift + F5: Move in a circle between the last three positions where the cursor was placed. If you just opened a document, Shift + F5 will take you to the last point where you edited before closing this document.

Selecting text

You may have noticed from the previous section that the arrow keys are used to move your insertion pointer, and the Ctrl used to modify this move. Key Usage Shift modifying many of these keyboard shortcuts will allow you to select text in different ways.

  • Shift + left / right arrow
  • Ctrl + Shift + Left / Right Arrow: Extend your current selection one character left or right
  • Shift + up / down arrow: Extend the selection one line up or down
  • Ctrl + Shift + Up / Down Arrow: Extend selection to the beginning or end of a paragraph
  • Shift + End: Extend selection to end of line
  • Shift + Home: Extend selection to start of line
  • Ctrl + Shift + Home / End: Extend selection to the beginning or end of the document
  • Shift + Page Down / Page Up: Extend the selection down or up the screen
  • Ctrl + A: Select the entire document
  • F8: Enter the selection mode. In this mode, you can use the arrow keys to expand the selected text. You can also press F8 up to five times for consecutive selection different modes discharge. The first press enters the selection mode, the second press selects the word following the selection point, the third press selects the whole sentence, the fourth - all the characters in the paragraph and the fifth - the entire document. Pressing Shift + F8 also works in a circle, but in the opposite direction. And at any time you can press Esc to leave selection mode. You need to play around with this function a bit to get the meaning of it - but it's kind of fun!
  • Ctrl + Shift + F8: Select a column. When a column is selected, you can use the left and right buttons to expand the selection to other columns.

Editing text

Word also provides a number of keyboard shortcuts for editing text.

  • Backspace: Delete character to the left
  • Ctrl + Backspace: Delete word to the left
  • Delete: Delete one character to the right
  • Ctrl + Delete: Delete one word to the right
  • Ctrl + C: Copy text or graphics to clipboard
  • Ctrl + X: Cut (copy and delete) selected text or graphics to the clipboard
  • Ctrl + V: Paste from clipboard
  • Ctrl + Alt + V: Paste special
  • Ctrl + F3: Cut selected text into Spike. Spike is an interesting variation on the regular clipboard. You can keep cutting text in Spike and Word will remember everything you cut. When you place Spike content, Word will insert all the text you cut out in one go, placing each text on a separate line.
  • Ctrl + Shift + F3: Paste Spike content
  • Alt + Shift + R: Copy the title or footer used in the previous section of the document

Applying character formatting

Word also has quite a few keyboard shortcuts for applying formatting to characters (as well as for formatting paragraphs - but we'll cover those combinations in the next section). You can use these keyboard shortcuts to apply formatting to the selected text, and if no text is selected, this formatting will be applied to what you type next at the insertion point.

  • Ctrl + B: Make text bold
  • Ctrl + I: Make text italic
  • Ctrl + U: Make text underlined
  • Ctrl + Shift + W: Make words underlined, but leave spaces between words without underlining
  • Ctrl + Shift + D: Make text double underlined
  • Ctrl + D: Open the Font dialog box
  • Ctrl + Shift +!: Increase font size
  • Ctrl + Shift + (: Decrease font size
  • Ctrl + =: Small subscript (switch to convert selected characters to subscripts)
  • Ctrl + Shift + =: Small superscript character (switch to convert selected characters to superscript characters)
  • Shift + F3: Circling around for letter case formats for your text. Available formats: "As in sentences" (first letter capitalized, the rest small), "all lowercase", "ALL UPPERCASE", "Start with uppercase" (the first letter of each word is uppercase) and "CHANGE CASE" (change the case of letters to opposite).
  • Ctrl + Shift + A: Capitalize all letters
  • Ctrl + Shift + K: Convert all letters to lowercase
  • Ctrl + Shift + C: Copy character formatting of selected text (DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE?)
  • Ctrl + Shift + V: Paste formatting into selected text (DOES NOT WORK ANYMORE?)
  • Ctrl + Space: Remove all manual formatting from selected text (retains style format)

Applying formatting to paragraphs

Just like for formatting characters, Word has a bunch of hotkeys specifically for formatting a paragraph.

  • Ctrl + M: Increase the indentation of the paragraph each time you press this combination
  • Ctrl + Shift + M: Decrease paragraph indent every time you press this combination
  • Ctrl + T: Increase paragraph indentation without changing red line indent with each click
  • Ctrl + Shift + T: Decrease paragraph indent without changing red line indent with each click
  • Ctrl + E: Align text to center
  • Ctrl + L: Align text to the left
  • Ctrl + R: Align text to the right
  • Ctrl + J: Align text to page width
  • Ctrl + 1: Install line spacing by 1
  • Ctrl + 2: Set line spacing to 2
  • Ctrl + 5: Set line spacing to 1.5
  • Ctrl + 0: Remove single line spacing preceding paragraph
  • Ctrl + Shift + S: Open the "Apply Styles" popup
  • Ctrl + Shift + N: Applying normal paragraph style
  • Alt + Ctrl + 1: Apply heading style 1
  • Alt + Ctrl + 2: Apply heading style 2
  • Alt + Ctrl + 3: Apply heading style 3
  • Ctrl + Shift + L: Apply List style
  • Ctrl + Q: Remove all paragraph formatting (MAY NOT BE SPECIFIED IN SOME VERSIONS of Word!)
  • Ctrl + Shift + L: Create bullet points

Keyboard shortcuts for pasting

When you need to insert a section break into your document or characters that are not on your keyboard, then Word keyboard shortcuts will come to your rescue.

  • Shift + Enter: Insert line break
  • Ctrl + Enter: Insert page break
  • Ctrl + Shift + Enter: Insert column break
  • Ctrl + dash (-) is a dash (minus sign) on digital block keyboard: Insert an optional em dash or hyphen. By default, a dash is inserted; if a word is at the end of a line, then it acts as a hyphen.
  • Alt + Ctrl + dash (-): Insert hyphen
  • Ctrl + Shift + Dash (-): An unbreakable dash is inserted. This command tells Word not to break a word at the end of a line, even if there is a dash in it. This can be useful, for example, if you have included something like phone number and you want to make sure it ends up completely on one line.
  • Ctrl + Shift + Spacebar: Inserts a non-breaking space. A non-breaking space looks like a regular space, but does not cause the separated part of a word to wrap to another line. Can be useful in similar situations as an unbreakable dash.
  • Alt + Ctrl + C: Insert copyright symbol (in some Word you need to configure this keyboard shortcut beforehand)
  • Alt + Ctrl + R: Insert the registered trademark symbol
  • Alt + Ctrl + T: Insert a trademark symbol

Working with headers

Large text, divided into headings, is easy to read and easy to navigate when reading and editing. If you are the type of person who uses headers, the following are a few keyboard shortcuts for you.

  • Alt + Shift + up / down arrow: Move title one line up / down
  • Ctrl + Shift + N: Converting the title to plain text
  • Alt + Shift + Up Arrow / Winz: Promote / Demote a heading (e.g. a first level heading becomes a second level heading)
  • Alt + Shift + Minus or Plus buttons: Collapse or expand the text under the heading

Working with tables

Moving through tables does not work exactly like moving through regular text. Instead of clicking where you want to go or using the arrow keys, try the following combinations:

  • Tab: Move to the next cell in a row and select its content (if any)
  • Shift + Tab: Move to the previous cell in a row and select its content (if any)
  • Alt + Home / End: Move to the first or last cell in a row
  • Alt + Page Up / Page Down: Move to the first or last cell in a column
  • Up / Down Arrows: Move to the previous or next row
  • Shift + up / down arrow: Selects a cell in a row above or below the insertion point. Keep clicking to select more than one cell. If you have selected multiple cells in a row, this combo will select those same cells in the row above or below.
  • Alt + 5 on the numeric keypad (with NumLock disabled): Select the entire table

Other Word keyboard shortcuts

  • Ctrl + Shift + *: Toggle to show / hide special characters (non-printable characters)
  • Ctrl + Shift + L: Show document statistics (number of words, characters, pages, etc.)
  • Ctrl + scroll with mouse wheel: Change the scale of the document, increase or decrease the size of texts, images and all other elements. On small screens, it allows you to view small elements of the document.

How to add keyboard shortcuts in Word. How to edit keyboard shortcuts in Word

Of course, not all Word keyboard shortcuts are covered here.

What's more, you can assign your own keyboard shortcuts for commands, styles, even automatic text insertion.

Not only can you assign your own hotkeys, you can also reassign existing ones. To do this, in the menu File choose Options:

Switch to the "Customize the Ribbon" tab and click the "Keyboard Shortcut" button. Setting ":

When you have found a command for which you want to set a keyboard shortcut, then select it and click on the "New shortcut keys" field. Then press (enter) this combination. Click the "Assign" button.

Conclusion

That's all! The list turned out to be not small, but this is not surprising, given the huge number of functions and capabilities of Word.

I really hope that you have found something useful for yourself and that your life in Word will become a little easier and your productivity will improve.

Recently I was given a candy bar for my birthday, and after installing MS Office2013, I found that the hotkeys were “changed”. Ever since my time as a layout designer, I used to widely use hotkeys, since using a mouse slows down my work on a PC. So, in Word2013, the combination Ctrl + S stopped saving the file, and Ctrl + V stopped pasting text. Fortunately, Microsoft has provided an option for customizing hotkeys, which I took advantage of.

In Word, go through the menu File –> Options, go to the tab Customize the Ribbon and click on the button Customization… (Fig. 1).

Download a note in the format or

To set up familiar keyboard shortcuts for a command Save file, in the opened window Keyboard customization select tab File, command FileSave, and click in the window New keyboard shortcut(fig. 2). Enter the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + S (and do not type the text Ctrl + S in the window), press Assign, close all windows. Voila!

Note. Typically, you will want to assign new hotkeys to all files. Then leave the window setting Save changes to: unchanged - Normal.dotm. If for some reason you only want to assign new hotkeys to open file, select its name in the window Save changes to:

Repeat the procedure to configure hotkeys for other commands. The most popular commands are shown in the table in Fig. 3.

Below is a list of the most commonly used keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Word. See Page if you are looking for a list of keyboard shortcuts used in other programs. Be aware that some of these shortcuts may not work in all Microsoft versions Word.

Note. If the device you are using does not have function keys(F1-F12) on a keyboard such as a Chromebook, some hotkeys are not available to you.

Keyboard shortcut Description
Ctrl + 0 Increase or decrease the spacing before the current paragraph by one line
Ctrl + A Select all page content.
Ctrl + B Make the selected text bold.
Ctrl + C Copy the selected text.
Ctrl + D Open the font settings window.
Ctrl + E Aligns a line or selected text to the center of the screen.
Ctrl + F Open the search box.
Ctrl + I Italic emphasis.
Ctrl + J Aligns the selected text or line to align the screen.
Ctrl + K Insert a hyperlink.
Ctrl + L Aligns the line or selected text to the left of the screen.
Ctrl + M Indent a paragraph.
Ctrl + N Opens a new blank document window.
Ctrl + O Opens a dialog box or page for selecting a file to open.
Ctrl + P Open the print window.
Ctrl + R Aligns the line or selected text to the right of the screen.
Ctrl + S Save open document... Same as Shift + F12.
Ctrl + T Create a hanging indent.
Ctrl + U Underline the selected text.
Ctrl + V Insert.
Ctrl + W Close the open document.
Ctrl + X Cut selected text.
Ctrl + Y Repeat the last step.
Ctrl + Z Undo the last action.
Ctrl + Shift + L Create a marker quickly.
Ctrl + Shift + F Change the font.
Ctrl + Shift +> Increase the selected font + 1pts to 12pt and then increase the font + 2pts.
Ctrl +] Increase selected font + 1pts.
Ctrl + Shift +< Decrease selected font -1pts if 12pt or lower; if higher than 12, font is decreased by + 2pt.
Ctrl + [ Decrease selected font -1pts.
Ctrl + / + s Insert a sign sign (¢).
Ctrl + ‘+<символ> Insert the character with the accent mark (grave) where Is the character you want. For example, if you wanted to use an accented è, you would use Ctrl + ‘+ e in key quality quick access... To change an accent mark, use an opposite accent mark, often on a tilde.
Ctrl + Shift + * View or hide non-printable characters.
Ctrl +<левая стрелка> Moves one word to the left.
Ctrl +<правая стрелка> Moves one word to the right.
Ctrl +<стрелка вверх> Move to the beginning of a line or paragraph.
Ctrl +<стрелка вниз> Move to the end of a paragraph.
Ctrl + Del Deletes the word to the right of the cursor.
Ctrl + Backspace Deletes the word to the left of the cursor.
Ctrl + End Moves the cursor to the end of the document.
Ctrl + Home Moves the cursor to the beginning of the document.
Ctrl + Space Reset the selected text to the default font.
CTRL + 1 Single-span lines.
CTRL + 2 Double-span lines.
CTRL + 5 1.5 line spacing.
Ctrl + Alt + 1 Changes the text to heading 1.
Ctrl + Alt + 2 Changes the text in the heading 2.
Ctrl + Alt + 3 Changes the text to heading 3.
Alt + Ctrl + F2 Open a new document.
Ctrl + F1 Open the taskbar.
Ctrl + F2 Show preview.
Ctrl + Shift +> Increases the selected text size by one font size.
Ctrl + Shift +< Decreases the size of the selected text by one font size.
Ctrl + Shift + F6 Switches to another open Microsoft document Word.
Ctrl + Shift + F12 Prints out a document.
F1 Open help.
F4 Repeat the last action (Word 2000+)
F5 Open the Find, Replace, and Go window in Microsoft Word.
F7 Spell checker and grammar check the selected text or document.
F12 Save as.
Shift + F3 Change the text in Microsoft Word from uppercase to lowercase or a capital letter at the beginning of each word.
Shift + F7 Performs a thesaurus check on the selected word.
Shift + F12 Save the open document. Same as Ctrl + S.
Shift + Enter Create a soft hyphen instead of a new paragraph.
Shift + Insert Insert.
Shift + Alt + D, Insert the current date.
Shift + Alt + T Insert the current time.

You can also use your mouse to perform some general actions. The following section provides examples of mouse shortcuts.

Mouse Actions Description
Click, hold and drag Selects the text you click and hold from to the point you drag and release.
Double click If you double-click a word, you select the complete word.
Double click Double-clicking a left, center, or right blank line aligns text to the left, center, or right.
Double click Double-clicking anywhere after the text on the line will set a tab stop.
Triple click Selects the line or paragraph of text on which the mouse button is pressed.
Ctrl + Mouse Wheel Scaling in and out of a document.

In this article, you will learn about Word keyboard shortcuts. Why hot? So in the slang of computer users, key combinations for quick call any commands. Also, you probably heard about keyboard shortcuts. So, this is the same thing.

Below is a list of the most commonly used keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Word. Please note that some of these combinations may not work in all versions of Microsoft Word. Try these hotkeys in your Word and write it down in the comments below. Whether they work or not in your version.

Word keyboard shortcuts

Using keyboard shortcuts can dramatically increase productivity, reduce repetitive mouse movements, and help you stay more focused on your writing. For example, to copy text, you can select the text and press Ctrl + C. Keyboard shortcuts will make the process of editing text faster than moving your hands from the keyboard, selecting with the mouse, choosing to copy from the file menu, and then returning to the keyboard.

Note: If the device you are using does not have function keys (F1-F12) on your keyboard, such as a Chromebook, some commands will not be available to you.

Command Called action
Ctrl + 0 (zero) Adds 6 pt of spacing before the paragraph.
Ctrl + A Select all content on the page.
Ctrl + B Make the selection bold.
Ctrl + C Copy the selected text.
Ctrl + D Opens the font settings window.
Ctrl + E Aligns a line or selected text to the center of the screen.
Ctrl + F Opening the Find window.
Ctrl + I Make the selection italicized.
Ctrl + J Justify the selected text or line to the width
Ctrl + K Insert hyperlink
Ctrl + L Left-align the selected text or line
Ctrl + M Paragraph indent (tab)
Ctrl + N A new, empty document window opens.
Ctrl + O Opens a page or dialog box for selecting a file to open
Ctrl + P Open print window
Ctrl + R Right-align the selected text or line
Ctrl + S Saving an open document
Ctrl + T Create first line indent in a paragraph
Ctrl + U Underline selected text
Ctrl + V Paste copied fragment or object
Ctrl + W Close the currently open document
Ctrl + X Cut selected text
Ctrl + Y Repeat the last action.
Ctrl + Z Undo the last action.
Ctrl + Shift + L Quickly insert a bulleted list icon
Ctrl + Shift + F Opening the font settings window
Ctrl + Shift + * View or hide non-printable characters
Ctrl + Left Arrow Move cursor one word to the left
Ctrl + Right Arrow Move cursor one word to the right
Ctrl + Up Arrow Move cursor one paragraph up
Ctrl + Down Arrow Move cursor one paragraph down
Ctrl + Del Deletes the word to the right of the cursor
Ctrl + Backspace Deletes the word to the left of the cursor
Ctrl + End Moves the cursor to the end of the document.
Ctrl + Home Moves the cursor to the beginning of the document.
Ctrl + Spacebar Reset the selected text to the default font ()
Ctrl + 1 Install single line spacing in the current paragraph
Ctrl + 2 Set double line spacing in the current paragraph
Ctrl + 5 Set one and a half line spacing in the current paragraph
Ctrl + Alt + 1 Apply Heading 1 style to text
Ctrl + Alt + 2 Apply the Heading 2 style to the text
Ctrl + Alt + 3 Apply the Heading 3 style to the text
Alt + Ctrl + F2 Open a new document
Ctrl + F1 Hide or show the tool strip
Ctrl + F2 View a printed document
Ctrl + Shift + 1 Increases the font size of the selected text by one value
Ctrl + Shift + 9 Decreases the font size of the selected text by one value
Ctrl + Shift + F6 Switch between open windows text documents
F1 Open Microsoft Word Help
F4 Redo last action
F5 Open the Find and Replace window in Microsoft Word.
F7 Check spelling in document
F12 Save as
Shift + F3 Changes the selected text in Microsoft Word to uppercase or lowercase, or every word from an uppercase letter
Shift + F7 Opens a dictionary of synonyms for the selected word
Shift + F12 Saves the document. Same as Ctrl + S.
Shift + Enter Go to new line without creating a paragraph
Shift + Insert Insert
Shift + Alt + D Insert current date
Shift + Alt + T Insert current time

Alternative call of hotkeys in Word

Of course, this is not a complete list of Word keyboard shortcuts. There are actually many more of them. You can see for yourself. V text editor Word, no matter what version, press the ALT button on the keyboard and look at the Word toolbar.

Use mouse hotkeys in Word

You can also use your mouse to perform some actions. The following section provides examples of mouse keyboard shortcuts.

Friends, you know the hotkey combinations that are not in the presented list, write in the comments.

Dear reader! You have watched the article to the end.
Did you get an answer to your question? Write a few words in the comments.
If you can't find an answer, indicate what you were looking for.

Even if you are familiar with Microsoft Word, you may be surprised at the number and variety of keyboard shortcuts you can use to speed up your work, and they generally make operations more convenient.

So, does anyone expect you to memorize all of these keyboard shortcuts? Of course not! Every need is different, so some of them will be more beneficial to you than others. And even if you just pick up a few new tricks, it's worth it.

Also, while our list of keyboard shortcuts is quite long, this is not a complete list of all keyboard shortcuts available in Word. We tried to write only the most useful combinations keys. And you'll be happy to know that almost all of these keyboard shortcuts have been around for a long time, so they should be useful no matter which version of Word you are using.

General program shortcuts

Microsoft Word has many common program hotkeys that make it easy for you to do everything from saving a document to canceling an error.

  • Ctrl + N: create a new document
  • Ctrl + O: open an existing document
  • Ctrl + S: saving document
  • F12: open the "Save As" dialog box
  • Ctrl + W: close document
  • Ctrl + Z: undo action
  • Ctrl + Y: repeat action
  • Alt + Ctrl + S: split window or remove split view
  • Ctrl + Alt + V: preview print layout
  • Ctrl + Alt + O: structure view
  • Ctrl + Alt + N: draft
  • Ctrl + F2: preview print
  • F1: open the help panel
  • Ctrl + F: search in document
  • F7: start spelling and grammar check
  • Shift + F7: open the thesaurus. If you have selected a word, Shift + F7 searches for that word in the thesaurus.

Moving around in a document

You can use keyboard shortcuts to easily navigate throughout your document. This can save time if you have a long document and don't want to scroll through the entire document, or just want to move between words or sentences.

  • Left / Right Arrow: move the insertion point (cursor) one character left or right
  • Ctrl + Left / Right Arrow: move one word left or right
  • Up / Down Arrow: move up or down one line
  • Ctrl + up / down arrow: move up or down one paragraph
  • End: go to the end of the current line
  • Ctrl + End: go to the end of the document
  • Home: go to the beginning of the current line
  • Ctrl + Home: go to the beginning of the document
  • Page Up / Page Down: move up or down one screen
  • Ctrl + Page Up / Page Down: go to the previous or next browsing item (after performing a search)
  • Alt + Ctrl + Page Up / Page Down: move to the top or bottom of the current window
  • F5: open the Find dialog box with the Go To tab selected so you can quickly jump to a specific page, section, bookmark, etc.
  • Shift + F5: loop through the last three locations where the insertion point was placed. If you just opened a document, Shift + F5 will move you to the last point you edited, before closing the document.

Selecting text

You may have noticed in the previous section that the arrow keys are used to move the insertion point, and the Ctrl key is used to change that movement. Using the Shift key to change a large number these keyboard shortcuts allow you to select text in different ways.

  • Shift + Left / Right Arrow: extend the current selection by one character left or right
  • Ctrl + Shift + Left / Right Arrow: extend the current selection by one word left or right
  • Shift + Up / Down Arrow: expanding the range up or down one line
  • Ctrl + Shift + Up / Down Arrow: expanding a selection to the beginning or end of a paragraph
  • Shift + End: increase selection to end of line
  • Shift + Home: extend selection to start of line
  • Ctrl + Shift + Home / End: expand selection to the beginning or end of the document
  • Shift + Page Down / Page Up: advanced selection down or up one screen
  • Ctrl + A: select the whole document
  • F8: enter selection mode. In this mode, you can use the arrow keys to expand your selection. You can also press F8 up to five times to expand the selection. The first press switches to selection mode, the second press selects the word near the insertion point, the third one selects the entire sentence, the fourth one selects all the characters in the paragraph, and the fifth one selects the entire document. Pressing Shift + F8 works in the same loop, but backwards. And you can press Esc each time to exit selection mode.
  • Ctrl + Shift + F8: column selection. After selecting a column, you can use the left and right arrow keys to expand the selection to other columns.

Editing text

Word also provides a number of keyboard shortcuts for editing text.

  • Backspace: remove one character to the left
  • Ctrl + Backspace: delete one word to the left
  • Delete: remove one character to the right
  • Ctrl + Delete: delete one word to the right
  • Ctrl + C: copy or graphics to clipboard text
  • Ctrl + X: cut selected text or graphics to clipboard
  • Ctrl + V: paste the contents of the clipboard
  • Alt + Shift + R: copy the header or footer used in the previous section of the document

Applying character formatting

Word also has many keyboard combos for applying character formatting and paragraph formatting, but that's covered in the next section. You can use hotkeys to apply formatting to selected text or whatever you type next if no text is selected.

  • Ctrl + B: bold formatting
  • Ctrl + I: apply italic formatting
  • Ctrl + U: apply underline formatting
  • Ctrl + Shift + W: apply underline formatting to words, but not to spaces between words
  • Ctrl + Shift + D: apply double underline formatting
  • Ctrl + D: open font dialog
  • Ctrl + Shift +: Decrease or increase font size by one preset size at a time
  • Ctrl + [or]: Decrease or increase font size one point at a time
  • Ctrl + =: apply substring formatting
  • Ctrl + Shift + plus key: apply superscript formatting
  • Shift + F3: cyclical format for your text. The available formats are the beginning of a sentence (first letter at the beginning, all others in lowercase), lowercase, uppercase, capital letters(the first letter in every capital word) and a toggle case (which overrides whatever is there).
  • Ctrl + Shift + A: Formats all letters to uppercase
  • Ctrl + Shift + K: Formats all letters to lowercase
  • Ctrl + Shift + C: copies the formatting of the selection character
  • Ctrl + Shift + V: inserts formatting on the selected text
  • Ctrl + Space: removes all manual character formatting from the selection

Apply paragraph formatting

And just like with character formatting, Word has a bunch of hotkeys specific to paragraph formatting.

  • Ctrl + M: increases the indent of a paragraph by one level each time you click it
  • Ctrl + Shift + M: Decreases paragraph indentation by one level each time you click
  • Ctrl + T: increases the hanging indent every time you click
  • Ctrl + Shift + T: each time you press the button decreases the hanging indent
  • Ctrl + E: center a paragraph
  • Ctrl + L: left align a paragraph
  • Ctrl + R: right-align a paragraph
  • Ctrl + J: mark a paragraph
  • Ctrl + 1: setting a single interval
  • Ctrl + 2: set double spacing
  • Ctrl + 5: set 1.5 line spacing
  • Ctrl + 0: remove one line spacing before a paragraph
  • Ctrl + Shift + S: open popup to apply styles
  • Ctrl + Shift + N: apply normal paragraph style
  • Alt + Ctrl + 1: apply heading style 1
  • Alt + Ctrl + 2: apply heading style 2
  • Alt + Ctrl + 3: apply heading style 3
  • Ctrl + Shift + L: apply list style
  • Ctrl + Q: remove all paragraph formatting

Insert

  • Shift + Enter: insert line break
  • Ctrl + Enter: insert a page break
  • Ctrl + Shift + Enter: insert column separator
  • Ctrl + hyphen (-): add an optional hyphen. An optional hyphen tells Word not to use a hyphen unless the word breaks at the end of the line. If so, Word will use a hyphen where you placed it.
  • Alt + Ctrl + hyphen (-): insert dash
  • Ctrl + Shift + hyphen (-): insert a non-breaking hyphen. This tells Word not to break the word at the end of the line, even if there is a hyphen in there. This would be useful, for example, if you included something like a phone number and wanted to make sure it all appeared on the same line.
  • Ctrl + Shift + Space: insert non-breaking space
  • Alt + Ctrl + C: insert copyright symbol
  • Alt + Ctrl + R: insert the registered trademark symbol
  • Alt + Ctrl + T: insert a trademark symbol

Working with contours

  • Alt + Shift + Left / Right Arrow: advance (move left) or lower (move right) a line
  • Ctrl + Shift + N: downgrade outlines to plain text text
  • Alt + Shift + Up / Down Arrow: move a line using the insertion point up or down in a path
  • Alt + Shift + Plus or Minus: expand or collapse the text under the heading
  • Alt + Shift + A: expand or collapse all text or headings in a path
  • Alt + Shift + L: show the first line of body text or all body text
  • Alt + Shift + 1: show all headings that have heading style 1 applied
  • Alt + Shift + any other digit: show all headings for this level

Working with tables

  • Tab: go to the next cell in the row and select its contents, if any
  • Shift + Tab: move to the previous cell in the row and select its content, if any
  • Alt + Home / End: jump to the first or last cell in a row
  • Alt + Page Up / Page Down: jump to the first or last cell in a column
  • Up / Down Arrow: move to the previous or next line
  • Shift + Up / Down Arrow: select a cell in the row above or below the insertion or selection point. Keep pressing this combo to select more cells. If you have multiple cells in the selected row, this combo selects the same cells in the row above or below.
  • Alt + 5 on keyboard (with NumLock off): select the whole table

We hope you've found some new keyboard shortcuts to make your Word life easier.