Stump the PC Club is a free tech-advice column written by members of the North Orange County Computer Club, which has been in existence since 1976. Visit the club’s site at noccc.org.
QUESTION: I once read about a shortcut for drawing a line in Microsoft Word with just a few keystrokes. Can you refresh my memory?
PC CLUB: There have been so many Microsoft Word shortcuts added over the years that it’s hard to keep track of them. The one you may be referring to is as follows:
For a double line just enter the equals sign (=) three times in a row at the beginning of a line and hit the Enter key. You can also use the minus (-), tildes (~), underscore (_) and pound sign (#) for other line types
Here are some more of my favorite Word shortcuts. Several of them are obvious and well known but I’ll take a chance and list them also.
Note: the abbreviation CTRL means to use the Control key. For example, CTRL+A means to tap the A key while pressing the Control key..
Let’s discuss how Word behaves before we go any further. If you center a line of text and then press the Enter key, the next line will continue with the same format. This is because Word continues the new formatting until you change it back. What you’ll have to do is center the line, press the Enter key to go to a new line (actually new paragraph) and repeat the shortcut to return to normal formatting.
- To center a line of text
Place your cursor anywhere on a line and use CTRL+E. It acts as a toggle switch so you can enter the same key combination to have the line revert to normal. To round out this shortcut you can use CTRL+L, CTRL+R and CTRL+J for Left, Right and Justified.
- To change the font 1 size
Select some text and use CTRL+] to increase and CTRL+[ to decrease. For example, if a document is slightly too large to fit on a page you can use CTRL+A to select the entire document and then use CTRL+[ to reduce the font size until the document fits on a page. Obviously CTRL+A is a shortcut to select the entire document or to Select All.
- Type in all capitals
Use Shift+CTRL+A and use the same shortcut to go back to normal.
- To start typing on a new page (Page break)
Use Control+Enter and to indent a line of text 5 spaces use CTRL+M. Just add the Shift key to un-indent.
- Type some sample text in a hurry
Type =rand() at the beginning of a line followed by the Enter key. You can experiment by placing a number inside the parentheses.
- Start Spellchecker
You can start the Spellchecker by pressing the F7 key and open the Thesaurus by first highlighting a word adding the Shift key.
- Close a file
Type CTRL+W.
This is not a shortcut but comes in very handy. If you want to copy some text from a Web page and paste it into Word without all of the fancy formatting, just use Paste Special and choose Unformatted Text. This eliminates adding all those extra Word Styles to your document.
- Here are some basic shortcuts:
Cut (CTRL+X ) Copy (CTRL+C) Paste (CTRL-V) Undo (CTRL+Z) and of course Re-do is CTRL+Y. Print is Ctrl+P, Create new document is Ctrl+N, Save a Document is Ctrl+S.
- Remove formatting
To remove all of the formatting from a Word document, press CTRL+A (or select the portion of the document to be changed) then press CTRL+SHIFT+N.
- Find a synonym
A fast way is to locate a synonym for a word is to select the word and right click it. In the menu, select synonyms and click your desired replacement.
- Selecting Text
- To select a word, double-click the word
- To select a sentence, hold down CTRL and on the sentence.
- To select a line of text on the screen, single-click in the left screen margin at the line you want to select.
- To select a paragraph, triple-click in the paragraph
- To select the whole document, CTRL+ A, or triple-click in the left margin of the screen.
There are more than a few shortcuts here so choose your favorites and enjoy. - Ed Schwartz, NOCCC member. View his Web site at www.edwardns.com.