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: Selecting a Group of Words.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 14, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016
In other issues of WordTips you learn how to use the mouse, in conjunction with the keyboard, to select a sentence. You can also use the keyboard and mouse to select a group of sequential words in your document. To do this, simply follow these two steps:
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11204) 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: Selecting a Group of Words.
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2020-08-14 08:37:50
Jennifer Thomas
Good one!
I'm a technical writer, and one of my favorites is to click in a paragraph and then click Alt+Shift+the up or down arrow key - that selects the whole paragraph and moves it up/down without changing the formatting.
Anybody else have a favorite keyboard trick for editing?
2016-06-13 03:36:01
Des Lavender
And don't forget, that you can use Shift to anchor (as I like to call it) in a miriad of ways within Windows, from lists of files within Windows Explorer to blocks of cells within Excel. Which reminds me; you know that you can click and drag while holding the Alt key to get blocks of text, right?
For example this is in the middle of two lines:-
[Activity Raw D
"M459" Then "
2016-06-12 13:16:53
In Word 2007, I have to start the insertion point immediately ahead of the character that I want to start on, then depress the shift key, and finally move the insertion point immediately behind the last character I want covered. Then one left click covers everything in between. If I put the insertion point anywhere else in the first word, the selection starts on that letter, and the same thing happens at the last insertion point.
2016-06-11 09:40:20
Abdul Quadir
Thanks a lot for this immensely helpful tip!
It is important to note that this method only works when the option "When selecting, automatically select entire word" is enabled in the Word Options dialog box (on the Advanced tab).
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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:
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