Shortcut Keys

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'Shortcut Keys' topic. Click the article's title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

A Fast Find-Next
One of the handiest shortcut keys in all of Word is Shift+F4. Combining this shortcut with the Find feature allows you to quickly and easily repeat your searches.

Arranging Paragraphs
Need to move a few paragraphs around in your document? Word provides a couple of handy shortcuts that make it very easy to move them in any direction you want.

Assigning a Macro to a Keyboard Combination
A quick way to run a macro is to associate a shortcut key combination with the macro, and then use that shortcut to invoke the macro. Assigning shortcuts to macros is easy to do; just follow the steps in this tip.

Assigning a Macro to a Shortcut Key
Macros are very powerful. You can make them handy—in addition to powerful—if you assign a shortcut key to your macros. The process is relatively easy, as this tip documents.

Assigning a Shortcut Key to Styles
Shortcut keys are a great way to apply styles to text in a document. You can easily create a shortcut key assignment for any style you desire. This tip explains how.

Canceling a Menu
Want to back out of whatever you are doing in a menu? As with many tasks, Word provides several different ways you can stop what you are doing.

Centering a Paragraph with the Keyboard
Centering a paragraph with the Formatting toolbar is easy. Centering one with the keyboard is even easier, but few people know the shortcut to use. Here's how to do it.

Changing Font Size Using a Shortcut Key
Word provides the Ctrl+Shift+P shortcut for changing font size. The behavior of the shortcut differs, however, based on whether the Formatting toolbar is displayed. This tip provides the details on how to use the shortcut.

Changing Text Case
If you need to easily change the upper- and lower-case configuration of your text, Word has you covered. All you need to do is use the Change Case feature, as described in this tip.

Changing Text Case with WordBasic
Learn a shortcut for changing the case of your text, as well as a WordBasic macro for changing multiple instances in a document.

Converting Field Results to Text
Fields are meant to be dynamic, providing a result based on conditions at the time they are updated. You may want to convert the dynamic results of a field to regular text. This can be done with a simple shortcut key, discussed in this tip.

Converting Fields to Text
Fields are used to insert dynamic content into a document. What if you want the content to no longer be dynamic? You can convert the field to regular text by using the technique described in this tip.

Deleting Words
Tired of pressing the Delete or Backspace key for every character you want to delete? Here's a way you can make your editing much faster, with just a simple change to your deleting keypress.

Displaying Fields
Fields are used quite extensively in some documents. If you want to see where the fields are located, you'll want to use one of the methods described in this tip.

Finding Default Shortcut Keys
There are scores of shortcut keys defined in Word. If you want to discover what all those shortcut keys are, here are a few approaches you can use.

Format Painter Shortcut
The Format Painter is a great help when it comes to applying consistent formatting in a document. If you memorize two easy-to-use shortcuts, you can gain even more advantages by using the keyboard instead of the Format Painter itself.

Formatting Shortcut Key Behavior Changes in Word 2000
Ways in which the formatting shortcut keys changed in Word 2000.

Getting Context-Sensitive Help
Word employs what is called a context-sensitive help system. This means that the program tries to direct you to the portion of the help system that is most likely to answer your question, based on what you are viewing or doing. There are several ways to invoke this type of help, as you learn here.

Inserting a Copyright Mark
The copyright symbol is quite common in many types of documents. Here's several quick ways you can add the symbol to your documents.

Inserting Text with a Shortcut Key
The AutoText capabilities of Word are quite powerful, allowing you to insert all sorts of "boilerplate" information in your document. Expanding an AutoText entry is easy when you use the F3 key, but there are ways you can create special shortcut keys for individual AutoText entries.

Jumping Between Columns
If your document is divided into columns, you can use a handy shortcut to jump from one column to the other. One shortcut allows you to jump forward through the columns, while another allows you to jump backward.

Jumping Between Fields
Need to step through the fields in a document? It's easy using the shortcuts detailed in this tip.

Jumping to the Ends of Table Columns
Need a quick shortcut to jump to the top or bottom of a table column? Here's the two shortcuts you are searching for.

Jumping to the Ends of Table Rows
Need to jump from one end of a table row to another? Word provides a couple of handy shortcuts that can make this type of navigation a snap.

Keyboard Control of the Find and Replace Dialog Box
Hate to take your hands off the keyboard? This tip explains how you can use the keyboard to work with the Find and Replace dialog box, without the need to use the mouse at all.

Locking a Field
Fields are meant to be dynamic in nature—their results change to reflect the conditions when the field is updated or when a document is printed. If you want to, you can "lock" a field so that it is no longer dynamic and doesn't update.

Messed-up Typing
It is not uncommon for newcomers to Word to overwrite their existing document text as they are editing. There is a reason for that—and a fix. Here's the information you need.

Moving Table Rows Quickly
Word provides a great shortcut you can use to arrange the rows in your tables. Just use the Shift+Alt keys as you press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow keys, and you'll be surprised at how easily you can rearrange your table.

Paragraph Formatting Shortcuts
Word provides a number of different shortcuts you can use to format your paragraphs. This tip provides a list of the most common (and useful) shortcuts.

Picking Up Where You Left Off
How to continue editing where you last were.

Potential Shortcut Key Problems
Avoiding conflicts in shortcut keys.

Printing a Key Assignment List
Many people customize Word so that macros, styles, and various commands are assigned to specific shortcut keys. This tip explains how you can get a printout of what key assignments have been made on your system.

Printing Shortcut Key Assignments
Shortcut keys are great timesavers when you don't want to remove your hands from the keyboard to mess with the mouse. Word even lets you define your own shortcut keys to augment the rich selection provided by the program. You may, for reference purposes, want to print out a list of all the assignments. You can do so by using the steps outlined in this tip.

Quickly Changing Document Windows
Word provides a keyboard shortcut that you can use to cycle through document windows, but no way to do it using the mouse. You can get around this shortcoming by using the macro provided in this tip.

Quickly Changing Document Windows with WordBasic
A shortcut and a WordBasic macro that you can use to switch windows.

Quickly Decreasing Point Size
A shortcut for decreasing the point size of a font.

Quickly Increasing Point Size
Need to increase the point size of some text in a hurry? You can do it using the Ctrl+] shortcut, as described in this tip.

Quickly Removing Table Borders
Insert a table in your document and Word assumes that you want borders around the table and its cells. Here's a shortcut that allows you to easily remove those borders.

Removing a Macro from a Shortcut Key
You can quickly assign shortcut keys to macros, but may later want to remove those associations. Here's how to quickly remove the shortcut keys you no longer want.

Repeating Your Typing
Want to repeat your last little bit of typing, or perhaps the last command you invoked? It's easy to do with the F4 shortcut key, as described in this tip.

Resetting Default Character Formatting
Sometimes you want to remove all the formatting from a text selection. This tip explains a fast and easy way to remove the formatting and return the text to whatever format is possessed by the underlying style.

Resetting Paragraph Formatting
Tired of the formatting used in a paragraph? One way to "start over" is to make sure that the formatting is reset to its default conditions. Here's how to do the reset both manually and in a macro.

Restoring a Keyboard Shortcut
Word uses keyboard shortcuts for all sorts of tasks. Sometimes you may create a shortcut that messes up one of the other shortcuts you really need to keep. This tip explains how you can "undo" a shortcut key assignment so that everything gets back to normal.

Revisiting Formatting Shortcut Key Behavior Changes in Word 2000
A second take on the issue of how Word 2000 changed the behavior of some formatting shortcut keys.

Selecting Default Paragraph Formatting
You can easily and freely apply all sorts of formatting to a paragraph. When you want to remove all that explicit formatting, just one little shortcut key is all that is needed to do the trick.

Shortcut for AutoCorrect Dialog Box
There is no built-in keyboard shortcut that will display the AutoCorrect dialog box. This doesn't mean that there aren't a variety of approaches you can use to create your own shortcuts—both keyboard and toolbar—for displaying the desired dialog box.

Shortcut for Full-Screen Mode
Toggling back and forth between full-screen and normal modes is not something for which Word provides a dedicated shortcut. Here's different ways you can do the toggling, including creating your own shortcut.

Shortcut for Show/Hide
Hate to take your hands off the keyboard? Here's a handy keyboard shortcut you can use to display (or not display) the non-printing characters in your document.

Shortcut to Return to Document Text
When you are done typing a footnote or endnote in your document, you may want a way to return to the main document text without the necessity of removing your hands from the keyboard. Word doesn't have a shortcut to do this, but another of Word's shortcuts may help you out.

Shortcuts for Basic Style Formatting
Want to get your text away from the explicit formatting you applied, back to the underlying formatting? Here's a couple of handy shortcuts you can use in that regard.

Stepping Through Common Point Sizes
A shortcut for, well, stepping through common point sizes.

Stepping Through Head Formats
Documents can contain any number of heading levels to denote the organization of your text. Word provides shortcuts, detailed in this tip, that easily allow you to step through different heading levels.

Strikethrough Shortcut Key
One common type of formatting is strikethrough, which is normally applied from the Font dialog box. There is no built-in keyboard shortcut for the format, but you can make your own following the advice in this tip.

Using Extend Mode
One of the most overlooked shortcut keys in Word has to be the extend key. Yet, learning how to use this simple key can save your hours in your editing efforts. Here's how to use extend mode to make your editing more productive.