Selecting Just the Word

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 8, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365


2

John often double-clicks on a word to select it, as most of us do. Doing this selects not only the word he wants, but also the space after the word. He wonders if there is some way to make Word only select a single word, without the space, when he double-clicks.

Apparently, Word considers any trailing spaces to be part of the word that precedes those spaces, and this assumption is hard-coded into the program. When you double-click on a word, the program automatically selects all the spaces along with the word. If there is a punctuation mark of some type after the word, then it is not selected. (A punctuation mark is considered the start of a new word for selection purposes.)

The only way that we've found to unselect the trailing spaces makes use of keyboard shortcuts, and it only works under certain conditions. If you double-click a word you are making a selection. If you then hold down the Shift key and press the Left Arrow key, the selection shrinks from the right side by a single character. This allows you to not select the trailing space originally selected when you double-clicked. This technique works fine until you start selecting multiple words.

If you double-click on a word and drag the mouse over the next word to the right, the default configuration of Word is to select the two (or three or four) words. Again, you've made a selection and you can shrink that selection on the right end by holding down the Shift key and pressing the Left Arrow key.

However, if you double-click on a word and drag the mouse to the left to select the previous word, then the program seems to remember the direction in which you created your selection. Since you made the selection from right to left, holding down the Shift key and pressing the Left Arrow key increases the selection by one character at the left. In other words, you can't use this approach to "unselect" a trailing space if you create the original selection with the mouse going from right to left.

It is possible to create a macro that would ignore any trailing spaces, but that would mean modifying how you select words—you would need to either click a button on the QAT or ribbon or you would need to use a shortcut key associated with the macro. Since such an approach requires modifying how you select text, you might as well ditch the mouse and use the keyboard to select your text. (In other words, don't double-click to select. Use keyboard navigation techniques instead.) It doesn't take much to press Ctrl+Left Arrow to jump to the beginning of the word, Shift+Ctrl+Right Arrow to select to the end of the word, and then Shift+Left Arrow to deselect any trailing spaces.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (5956) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Setting the Print Area

Many people, when they print a worksheet, print the entire thing. You don't have to, however. You can specify that Excel ...

Discover More

Changing How Excel Determines which Year to Use

When you enter a date into a cell and you omit the year, Excel helpfully adds the current year to the date. If you want ...

Discover More

Understanding Auto-Population of Cells

Auto-population of your formulas can be a useful tool when you are adding data to your worksheets. It would be even more ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! Are you ready to harness the full power of Word 2013 to create professional documents? In this comprehensive guide you'll learn the skills and techniques for efficiently building the documents you need for your professional and your personal life. Check out Word 2013 In Depth today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Replacing Some Smart Quotes

Smart quotes look great in a document, but may not be right for all instances of quote marks or apostrophes. If you need ...

Discover More

Adding a Break to Your Document

Want to modify the way your text flows between pages in a document? Word allows you to insert several types of breaks ...

Discover More

Transposing Two Characters

If you have two characters in the wrong order, you might be interested in a shortcut you can use to switch their order. ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 2 + 2?

2021-03-05 07:51:59

Istvan

I've actually created a small Word add-on to mend this (and some other) issue. If anyone's interested please give it a try. Word of warning (pun not intended) it may be buggy at this stage :)

Anyways you can grab it at: https://battlepuli.com/selectron/


2020-11-28 12:12:35

Ron S MVP

Duplicate post, should be merged
https://wordribbon.tips.net/T010623_Selecting_a_Word.html


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.