Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Arranging Paragraphs.

Arranging Paragraphs

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 20, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016

Sometimes you want to move a paragraph or two around in your document. For instance, you might want to move a paragraph from its current location to before the preceding paragraph. You can quickly move paragraphs by following these steps:

Position the insertion point in the paragraph you want to move.
While holding down the Shift and Alt keys, press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow to move the paragraph.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10625) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Arranging Paragraphs.

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. Learn more about Allen...

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What is 9 + 4?

2022-12-20 12:03:29

Beej

I'll bet any subscriber to this site already knows this, but just in case: this also works with table rows. Select the row(s) to move and then use Alt+Shift+ arrow key to move the row(s) up or down.

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