Check out these Microsoft Word hacks you didn't know!
Evolution of Word
As people continue to use Microsoft's Word we notice it is ever evolving. For instance, you no long have to highlight a word or paragraph to change it. Simply click the word (so your cursor is somewhere in it) and select the action such as bold, underline, italics, etc. This also applies to paragraph formatting. If your cursor is in the paragraph all you have to do it apply the action you want like centering a text. But this is just one way that Word has evolved to make your life easier see the below hacks for more information.
Click-Shift-Click
Sometimes you need to highlight a specific piece of text that is not a nice neat paragraph. Maybe you need only two sentences or just four words. Usually you would have to click and drag your cursor where you want. This takes to long and often ends in non-precise highlighting. To alleviate this problem click where you want your highlight to start. Then hold down the shift button and click where you want the highlight to end. This should highlight only the specific text you want.
Alt + Drag
One very interesting feature Word has is Alt + Ctrl. If you hold down those buttons and then drag your cursor you can select any text without selecting the whole paragraph. It is of particular use for bulleted lists or things you have copied and pasted from other documents. See the image below:
Ctrl Click
When we need to highlight certain words we can always double click and triple click to highlight a whole paragraph. But if you we need to highlight just one sentence there is not quadruplet click. But you can do it, hold the ctrl key and then click on the desired sentence. This should highlight only that sentence.
F4 Key
If you are formatting a piece of text in Word, lets say bolding several non-consecutive words in a paragraph. It can get tedious to click each word, go to the toolbar and then click the bold button. You could just click F4. F4 repeats the last action you just did. So if you bolded a word hit F4 to bold another. You can use this tool for more than just one action. First click a word, then click the Font Dialogue Launcher (a small arrow). Find what actions you need: bold, underline, blue, and all caps. Then press "Okay". Now you press F4 it will fulfill those actions, until you have it do something different. See image below:
Tables
Finally, lets visit table formatting. One great feature you can do is convert lists into tables. To do this highlight you list. You might wish to deselect the bullet point or number actions as they will end up in the table with you highlighted text (or you could use Alt + Ctrl). Then go to "Insert", "Table. In the drop-down menu click "Convert text to table". A window will pop up. It will ask how many columns and rows you want. For example, if it is a list of 6 items I want six columns. Then click "Okay". You can also get your table to not break across pages. It can be incredibly irritating when half of your cell is on one page and the other is on the next. To solve this highlight the table and go to "Table Layout" in the ribbon. Click the Dialogue Box Launcher for "Cell Size", then click the table labeled "Row". Deselect the box labeled "Allow row to break across pages" and "Okay". This should solve your problems! See the image below:
I hope you have found these tech tips helpful! Please feel free to share these tips out or contact us with questions or comments.
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