Microsoft Word Tips And Tricks

1. Vertical Selection Of Text

Normally, we select a character, a word, a sentence or a paragraph. All these selections are horizontal selections. Sometimes you may need to select vertically. For example, if your text has numbers in the beginning, you may want to select only the numbers to delete them at one go (see figure).

To select text horizontally, press ALT and click to drag and make a selection. Remember to release ALT key before releasing the mouse else it will open the Research dialog. Check out the different uses of vertical selections and let us know what all you did with this feature.

2. Default Line Spacing

The default line spacing in Microsoft Word is 1.15 against 1 in Microsoft Word 2003. Microsoft changed the line spacing to make your text more readable. If you want the default line spacing as 1, follow this procedure:

3. Changing The Default Save Location

By default, MS Word opens Documents folder when you press CTRL+S for the first time. If you think this is irritating you, you can change the default file location to some other place where you normally store your documents.

4. Change Default Font

The default font for new documents in MS Word is Calibri. Though the font is good for online viewing, it creates problems when printing. You may be using Times New Roman or Arial for print jobs. One method is to change the font manually each time after you have typed the document. But then, it would involve formatting the document again. Another method is to change the default font.

5. Move Rows Of Text In Table

Sometimes when you are working on the table, you may want to move one or more rows in the table up or down without having to change the table formatting. One method is copy-pasting but that risks formatting. Another method is using ALT+SHIFT+UP arrow key to move an entire row up. Similarly, to move the entire row down, use ALT+SHIFT+DN arrow key. Note that you have to select the row before you can move it using the ALT+SHIFT+Arrow keys. This method makes sure the formatting is not disturbed.

6. Quickly Change Line Spacing

Sometimes need arises that you have to change line spacing among different paragraphs. Here are the shortcut keys: CTRL + 1 –> Change line spacing to 1 CTRL + 2 –> Change line spacing to 2 CTRL + 5 –> Change line spacing to 1.5 Note that you just need to place the cursor on the paragraph that needs to be styled. You need not select the paragraph.

7. Quickly Adding Borders to Paragraphs

If you wish to add borders to some paragraphs, you can use the Borders and Shading dialog box. However, if your need is just to add the bottom border to text/paragraph, you can do it by adding three special characters and hitting Enter. Press – (hyphen) three times and press Enter to draw an underline border of 3/4 points Press _ (underscore) three times and press Enter to draw an underline border of 1.5 points Press ~ (tilde) three times and press Enter to draw a zigzag underline border Press * (asterisk) three times and press Enter to draw a dotted underline border Press = (equal to) three times and press Enter to draw a double underline border

8. Find Special Formatting

You can find text that is specially formatted. For example, you can find highlighted text or text whose font is Times New Roman. You can also search for bold text or italics. There are many more options when you use the Find option.

9. Merging Formatting When Pasting Across Documents

When you copy anything from another document and paste it in the current document, you will want the copied text to match the formatting of the current document. While you can manually format each time you copy text from other documents to the current one, you can also set the default paste to merge formatting so that the text copied from other sources acquires the formatting of the current document.

10. Copy Only Formatting

Sometimes you may want to apply an already existing formatting from one part of your document to another part. You have the Format Painter for the purpose. Using the Format Painter can be irritating when dealing with long documents.  Here is another method that is easier to use. Press CTRL+SHIFT+C instead of CTRL+C. This will copy only the formatting and leave the text. Move to the destination where the formatting is to be applied. Select the text to which formatting is to be applied. Press CTRL+SHIFT+V to paste the formatting to the selection. Above are some Microsoft Word tips and tricks that make your working on the editor easy. If you have anything to share, please use the comments section.