In Microsoft Word 2016, you can change the keyboard shortcuts. A keyboard shortcut is a combination of keys that you press to give a command. For example, pressing Ctrl+P opens the Print window; pressing Ctrl+S gives the Save command. If you don’t like a keyboard shortcut in Word, you can change it and invent a keyboard shortcut of your own.
You can also assign keyboard shortcuts to symbols, macros, fonts, building blocks, and styles.
Follow these steps to choose keyboard shortcuts of your own in Microsoft Word:
Microsoft Word Keyboard Shortcut Paste Text Only
- On the File tab, choose Options.You see the Word Options dialog box.
- Go to the Customize Ribbon category.
- Click the Customize button (you can find it at the bottom of the dialog box next to the words “Keyboard Shortcuts”).Jason derulo songs download tip toe. You see the Customize Keyboard dialog box, as shown here.
- In the Categories list, choose the category with the command to which you want to assign the keyboard shortcut.At the bottom of the list are the Macros, Fonts, Building Blocks, Styles, and Common Symbols categories.
- Choose the command name, macro, font, building block, style, or symbol name in the Commands list.
- In the Press New Shortcut Key box, type the keyboard shortcut.Press the actual keys. For example, if the shortcut is Ctrl+8, press the Ctrl key and the 8 key — don’t type out C-t-r-l- +8.If you try to assign a shortcut that has already been assigned, the words “Currently assigned to” and a command name appear below the Current Keys box. You can override the preassigned keyboard assignment by entering a keyboard assignment of your own.
- If you want the keyboard shortcut changes you make to apply to the document you’re working on, not to all documents created with the template you’re working with, open the Save Changes In drop-down list and choose your document’s name.
- Click the Assign button.
- When you finish assigning keyboard shortcuts, close the Customize Keyboard dialog box.
To delete a keyboard shortcut, display it in the Current Keys box, select it, and click the Remove button.
You can always get the old keyboard shortcuts back by clicking the Reset All button in the Customize Keyboard dialog box.
There are many shortcuts for common functions in Microsoft Word. These shortcuts or commands can come in handy when typing a report or term paper, or even a letter. It is a good idea to try some of these functions before you actually begin a project. Once you become familiar with the way they work, you may become hooked on shortcuts.
Executing Shortcuts
Before you can use shortcuts commands, it's important to understand a few requirements. If the shortcut involves a section of text (words you have typed), you will need to highlight the text before typing the command. For instance, to bold a word or words, you must highlight them first.
For other commands, you may only need to place the cursor at a specific place. For instance, if you want to insert a footnote, place the cursor in the relevant position. The commands below are sectioned into groups by alphabetical order to make it easier to find the ones you need.
Bold Through Italics
Boldfacing a word or group of words is one of the handiest shortcut commands in Microsoft Word. Other commands, such as centering text, creating a hanging indent, or even calling for help can be useful shortcuts to know. The latter command—calling for help by pressing the F1 key—brings up a printed helpfile to the right of your document, which even includes its own search function. (The last section of this article contains instructions for the search command.)
Justify Through Single-Space Lines
Justifying a paragraph will make it flush left and flush right rather than ragged-right, which is the default in Word. Microsoft excel shortcuts cheat sheet. But, you can also left-align a paragraph, create a page break, and even mark a table of contents or index entry, as the shortcut commands in this section show.
Subscripts Through Undo
If you're writing a science paper, you might need to place certain letters or numbers in subscript, such as in H20, the chemical formula for water. The subscript shortcut makes it easy to do this, but you can also create a superscript with a shortcut command. And, if you make a mistake, correcting it is only a CTRL = Z away.
When you go looking for a shortcut — one you can't quite remember or one you know must surely be out there somewhere — you've got plenty of resources: Help files, Google hits, and even comprehensive lists like those you'll find in the TechRepublic downloads library. Comprehensive is great, but sometimes selective is more practical.
If you were stuck on a deserted island, which 10 Word shortcuts would you like to have with you? Here are mine.
Keystroke | Function | Notes |
Shift + F3 | Toggles through capitalization options. | This one isn't perfect — for instance, it insists on capitalizing articles and prepositions in Title Case mode — but it's still a big timesaver. |
Ctrl + Shift + N | Applies the Normal style. | If you work with documents that are riddled with obscure and specialized styles (typically other people's), it's handy to turn them into Normal paragraphs on the fly. |
Ctrl + Shift + C | Copies the formatting of selected text. | Once you've copied the format, you can press Ctrl + Shift + V to paste the formatting onto a new selection. Yeah, I know — Format Painter does this, too. But Format Painter forgets the formatting as soon as you're finished with it. This shortcut remembers what you copied until you close out of Word. |
Alt + F9 | Toggles the display of field codes on and off. | Unless you work with field shading turned on — and I don't know many users who do — you can't necessarily tell what's literal text and what's being generated by an underlying field code. A quick peek using this shortcut can prevent the headache of inexplicable changes and unwanted editing consequences. |
F4 | Repeats your most recent action. | This might be the all-time best shortcut (except for Undo, which I'm not including in this list because for me, at least, it's like breathing and requires no conscious thought). The F4 shortcut will repeat nearly all the actions you take on document text: typing: formatting, deleting.It will also let you repeat the action of adding or removing table rows, but it isn't well implemented with tables overall. For instance, changing table properties is not replicable via this shortcut. |
Ctrl + H | Opens the Find And Replace dialog box with the Replace tab selected. | Replace functionality is my constant companion, so this one is essential for me. Ctrl + F opens to the Find tab if you just want to locate something in a document (or make sure something isn't in there). |
Ctrl + drag text or an object | Creates a copy of the text or object. | Apologies to the keyboard purists, but this useful trick does require mouse action. It's handy when you need to copy an object and control where that copy ends up. For example, a picture or other object that has certain positioning attributes may land in some unpredictable location if you use the standard copy and paste functions. This shortcut lets you drag it exactly where you want it.Just make sure you drop the text or object before you release the Ctrl key or Word will move the original instead of copying it.BONUS: If you hold down Shift along with Ctrl as you drag, Word will keep the copy aligned with the original. |
Ctrl + Q | Removes paragraph formatting that isn't part of the style assigned to a selected paragraph. | When you want to strip out manually applied formats and return to only those characteristics defined by a paragraph style, this is the quickest way to get there. Ctrl + Spacebar works the same way for character formatting. |
Ctrl + 0 (zero) | Applies or removes 12 points of space above the current paragraph. | This sounds a little lame, but you can improve readability of selected text in about two seconds using this trick. For instance, table text is often jammed up against top borders. Select the table and hit Ctrl + 0 and you'll get an instant improvement. |
Alt + drag the mouse vertically | Make a vertical text selection. | Another keyboard/mouse hybrid, this one is obscure but useful. Some users have trouble making it work, but the problem is usually sequence. Just make sure you press Alt before you press the mouse button and drag. Then, release Alt before you release the mouse button. |
Even if you’re familiar with Microsoft Word, you might be surprised by the number and variety of keyboard shortcuts you can use to speed up your work, and just generally make things more convenient.
Now, does anyone expect you to memorize all these keyboard combos? Of course not! Everyone’s needs are different, so some will be more useful to you than others. And even if you just pick up a few new tricks, it’s worth it. We’ve also tried to keep the list clean and simple, so go ahead and print it that helps!
Also, even though our list of shortcuts here is pretty long, it’s by no means a complete list of every keyboard combo available in Word. We’ve tried to keep it to the more generally useful shortcuts. And, you’ll be happy to know that almost all of these shortcuts have been around for a long time, so they should be useful no matter what version of Word you’re using.
General Program Shortcuts
There are many general program shortcuts in Microsoft Word that make it easier for you to do everything from save your document to undo a mistake.
- Ctrl+N: Create a new document
- Ctrl+O: Open an existing document
- Ctrl+S: Save a document
- F12: Open the Save As dialog box
- Ctrl+W: Close a document
- Ctrl+Z: Undo an action
- Ctrl+Y: Redo an action
- Alt+Ctrl+S: Split a window or remove the split view
- Ctrl+Alt+V: Print Layout View
- Ctrl+Alt+O: Outline View
- Ctrl+Alt+N: Draft View
- Ctrl+F2: Print Preview View
- F1: Open the Help pane
- Alt+Q: Go to the “Tell me what you want to do” box
- F9: Refresh the field codes in the current selection
- Ctrl+F: Search a document
- F7: Run a spelling and grammar check
- Shift+F7: Open the thesaurus. If you have a word selected, Shift+F7 looks up 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 thing, or simply want to easily move between words or sentences.
- Left/Right Arrow: Move the insertion point (cursor) one character to the left or right
- Ctrl+Left/Right Arrow: Move one word to the left or right
- Up/Down Arrow: Move up or down one line
- Ctrl+Up/Down Arrow: Move up or down one paragraph
- End: Move to the end of the current line
- Ctrl+End: Move to the end of the document
- Home: Move to the beginning of the current line
- Ctrl+Home: Move 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 browse object (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 move to a specific page, section, bookmark, and so on.
- Shift+F5: Cycle through the last three locations where the insertion point was placed. If you just opened a document, Shift+F5 moves you to the last point you were editing before closing the document.
Selecting Text
You may have noticed from the previous section that the arrow keys are used for moving your insertion point around, and the Ctrl key is used to modify that movement. Using the Shift key to modify a lot of those key combos lets you select text in different ways.
- Shift+Left/Right Arrow: Extend your current selection by one character to the left or right
- Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right Arrow: Extend your current selection by one word to the left or right
- Shift+Up/Down Arrow: Extend selection up or down one line
- Ctrl+Shift+Up/Down Arrow: Extend selection to the beginning or end of the paragraph
- Shift+End: Extend selection to the end of the line
- Shift+Home: Extend selection to the beginning of the line
- Ctrl+Shift+Home/End: Extend selection to the beginning or end of the document
- Shift+Page Down/Page Up: Extend selection down or up one screen
- Ctrl+A: Select the entire document
- F8: Enter selection mode. While in this mode, you can use the arrow keys to extend your selection. You can also press F8 up to five times to extend the selection outward. The first press enters selection mode, the second press selects the word next to the insertion point, the third selects the whole sentence, the fourth all the characters in the paragraph, and the fifth the whole document. Pressing Shift+F8 works that same cycle, but backwards. And you can press Esc any time to leave selection mode. It takes a little playing with to get the hang of it, but it’s pretty fun!
- Ctrl+Shift+F8: Selects a column. Once the column is selected, you can use the left and right arrow keys to extend the selection to other columns.
Editing Text
Word also provides a number of keyboard shortcuts for editing text.
- Backspace: Delete one character to the left
- Ctrl+Backspace: Delete one word to the left
- Delete: Delete one character to the right
- Ctrl+Delete: Delete one word to the right
- Ctrl+C: Copy or graphics to the Clipboard text
- Ctrl+X: Cut selected text or graphics to the Clipboard
- Ctrl+V: Paste the Clipboard contents
- Ctrl+F3: Cut selected text to the Spike. The Spike is an interesting variant on the regular clipboard. You can keep cutting text to the Spike and Word remembers it all. When you paste the Spikes contents, Word pastes everything you cut, but places each item on its own line.
- Ctrl+Shift+F3: Paste the Spike contents
- Alt+Shift+R: Copy the header or footer used in the previous section of the document
Applying Character Formatting
Word also has loads of keyboard combos for applying character formatting (and paragraph formatting, but that’s covered in the next section. You can use the shortcuts to apply formatting to selected text or to whatever you type next if no text is selected.
- Ctrl+B: Apple bold formatting
- Ctrl+I: Apply italic formatting
- Ctrl+U: Apply underline formatting
- Ctrl+Shift+W: Apply underline formatting to words, but not the spaces between words
- Ctrl+Shift+D: Apply double underline formatting
- Ctrl+D: Open the Font dialog box
- Ctrl+Shift+< or >: Decrease or increase font size one preset size at a time
- Ctrl+[ or ]: Decrease or increase font size one point at a time
- Ctrl+=: Apply subscript formatting
- Ctrl+Shift+Plus key: Apply superscript formatting
- Shift+F3: Cycle through case formats for your text. Available formats are sentence case (capital first letter, everything else lower case), lowercase, uppercase, title case (first letter in each word capitalized), and toggle case (which reverses whatever’s there).
- Ctrl+Shift+A: Formats all letters as uppercase
- Ctrl+Shift+K: Formats all letters as lowercase
- Ctrl+Shift+C: Copies the character formatting of a selection
- Ctrl+Shift+V: Pastes formatting onto selected text
- Ctrl+Space: Removes all manual character formatting from a selection
Applying Paragraph Formatting
And just like with character formatting, Word has a bunch of shortcuts particular to formatting paragraphs.
- Ctrl+M: Increases a paragraph’s indent one level each time you press it
- Ctrl+Shift+M: Reduces a paragraph’s indent one level each time you press it
- Ctrl+T: Increases a hanging indent each time you press it
- Ctrl+Shift+T: Reduces a hanging indent each time you press it
- Ctrl+E: Center a paragraph
- Ctrl+L: Left-align a paragraph
- Ctrl+R: Right-align a paragraph
- Ctrl+J: Justify a paragraph
- Ctrl+1: Set single-spacing
- Ctrl+2: Set double-spacing
- Ctrl+5: Set 1.5 line Spacing
- Ctrl+0: Remove one line spacing preceding a paragraph
- Ctrl+Shift+S: Open a popup window for applying styles
- Ctrl+Shift+N: Apply the normal paragraph style
- Alt+Ctrl+1: Apply the Heading 1 style
- Alt+Ctrl+2: Apply the Heading 2 style
- Alt+Ctrl+3: Apply the Heading 3 style
- Ctrl+Shift+L: Apply the List style
- Ctrl+Q: Remove all paragraph formatting
Inserting Things
Whether you’re looking to insert a section break in your document, or you just don’t feel like digging for a common symbol, Word’s keyboard combos have you covered.
- Shift+Enter: Insert a line break
- Ctrl+Enter: Insert a page break
- Ctrl+Shift+Enter: Insert a column break
- Ctrl+hyphen (-): Insert an optional hyphen or en dash. An optional hyphen tells Word not to use a hyphen, unless the word breaks at the end of a line. If it does, Word will use a hyphen where you placed it.
- Alt+Ctrl+hyphen (-): Insert an em dash
- Ctrl+Shift+hyphen (-): Insert a non-breaking hyphen. This tells Word not to break a word at the end of a line, even if there’s a hyphen there. This would be useful, for example, if you included something like a telephone number and wanted to make sure it all appeared on one line.
- Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar: Insert a non-breaking space
- Alt+Ctrl+C: Insert a copyright symbol
- Alt+Ctrl+R: Insert a registered trademark symbol
- Alt+Ctrl+T: Insert a trademark symbol
Working with Outlines
Hopefully, you outline before cracking into a long document. If you’re among those organized, outlining souls, here are a few shortcuts to help you out.
- Alt+Shift+Left/Right Arrow: Promote (move to the left) or demote (move to the right) a line
- Ctrl+Shift+N: Demote an outline level to regular body text
- Alt+Shift+Up/Down Arrow: Move the line with the insertion point up or down in the outline
- Alt+Shift+Plus or Minus keys: Expand or collapse text under a heading
- Alt+Shift+A: Expand or collapse all text or headings in an outline
- Alt+Shift+L: Show the first line of body text or all body text
- Alt+Shift+1: Show all headings that have the Heading 1 style applied
- Alt+Shift+any other number key: Show all headings up to that level
Working with Tables
Moving around in tables doesn’t work quite like moving around in regular text. Instead of clicking where you want to go, check out these combos:
- Tab: Move to the next cell in a row and select its contents, if there are any
- Shift+Tab: Move to the previous cell in a row and select its contents, if there are 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 Arrow: Move to the previous or next row
- Shift+Up/Down Arrow: Select the cell in the row above or below the insertion point or selection. Keep pressing this combo to keep selecting more cells. If you have multiple cells in a row selected, this combo selects those same cells in the row above or below.
- Alt+5 on keypad (with NumLock off): Select an entire table
And that’s about it. Hopefully, you’ve found a few new keyboard shortcuts to make your life in Word a little easier!
But if that’s not quite enough for you, Word also allows you to create your own keyboard shortcuts for things like commands, styles, and even autotext entries. Plus, we’ve got a handy guide for printing out a list of any custom keyboard shortcuts you’ve created. Enjoy!