Hello. This is Gerry Chevalier from the GTT Edmonton Chapter. This weekly blog provides tips that I find useful as a keyboard user of Windows. The information is for Windows10 and Office 365, although many tips still apply to older versions.  The tips do not require a screen reader unless specifically noted. Thus, the tips apply whether you are a keyboard user or low vision mouse user. Here is this week’s tip.

Microsoft Word – General Shortcut Keys Part 1

While working in a Microsoft Word document (or other documents such as Outlook emails) you can:

• Press Backspace to delete the previous character.
• Press Control+Backspace to delete the previous word.
• Press Delete key to delete the current character at the cursor.
• Press Control+Delete to delete the next word.
• To bold text press Control+B, type the text, then press Control+B to turn off bolding. Or, if the text is already typed, select what you want bolded using the Shift plus arrow keys and then press Control+B.
• The above procedure is identical for underlining text or italicizing text. Just substitute Control+U for underlining and Control+I for italics.
• Press Control+E to centre the current line.
• Press Control+Shift+. (period) to increase the font size.
• Press Control+Shift+, (comma) to decrease the font size.
• Press Control+Z to undo the last edit action.
• Press left/right arrow keys to move from character to character.
• Press Up/Down arrows to move from line to line.
• Press Home or End keys to move to the beginning or end of a line.
• Press Control+Home or Control+End to move to the start or end of the document.
• Press Control+Left/Right arrow keys to move between words.
• Press Control+Up/Down arrows to move between paragraphs.
• Include the Shift key with the above navigation shortcut keys to select the text.
• Press Control+C to copy selected text to the clipboard.
• Press Control+V to paste text from the clipboard into the document.
• Press Control+Alt+V to open the paste special menu which allows you to decide how to paste the clipboard contents. For example, you can select to paste as html, plain text, picture, Word object, or RTF. Press Escape to exit the menu without making a choice. It’s important to paste as plain text if you are copying from other documents such as an email in order that you don’t paste the font or formatting of the source document into your Word document. Pasting as plain text will ensure the copied text conforms to the formatting of your Word document.
• Press Alt+Up/Down arrow keys to move between sentences.
• Press Control+G to enter a page number to jump to in the document.
• Press Control+Enter to enter a page break into the document.

That’s it for this tip. Until next Wednesday, happy computing.