Easily Extending Selections

In other issues of WordTips you learn that you can turn on extend mode (which allows you to make selections) by pressing the F8 key. Some people may wonder why anyone would bother to use F8 to make selections when simply holding down the Shift key or selecting with the mouse is just as easy, if not easier.

The answer is that using F8 enables a handy feature that is not available in other selection methods. If you press F8 to turn on the extend mode, you can then press any other key and Word will automatically extend the selection up to the next occurrence of that character. For instance, if you wanted to select everything from the current position of the insertion point through the next comma, simply press F8 and then a comma—the selection is automatically made. Press another comma, and the selection is extended to the next comma.

You can press any other key you want, except for F8 or Esc. Either of these will cancel the extend mode. If there is no subsequent occurrence of the key you press, then Word does not extend the selection.