Get Things Done Faster with these Microsoft Word Tips
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Microsoft Word
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Here
are 10 tips and tricks for Microsoft Word that will help you get things done
faster and more efficiently than ever before. I have created the animated GIFs
with Word 2013 but the tricks will work just fine with older versions of
Microsoft Office as well. Let’s get started.
1.
Select Text Quickly
You
can triple-click anywhere within a paragraph to select the entire paragraph in
Word. Or press the CTRL key and click anywhere within the sentence to select
the entire sentence.
You
can also select rectangular blocks of text in a Word document, similar to the
marquee tool in Photoshop, and apply formatting to the selected area. Hold down
the ALT key and drag your mouse to select any rectangular area.
2.
The Extended Clipboard
Word
has a useful “Spike” feature that you can use cut (move) text and images from
multiple locations in a document and paste them all at once to a different
location.
To
use Spike, select some text, images or other objects in your document and press
CTRL+F3 to move that selection to the Spike. You can highlight and append more
entries to the same Spike using the CTRL+F3 shortcut. Now press Ctrl+Shift+F3
to paste the content of the Spike anywhere in the document.
3.
Move Around Faster
If
you are working on a lengthy Word document, you can press the Shift+F5 keyboard
shortcut to cycle through the spots that you have edited most recently. Also,
when you open an existing document inside Word, the same Shift+F5 shortcut will
take you to the location that you were working on when the document was last
closed.
4. Change the Sentence CASE
Select
some text in Word and press Shift+F3 to quickly change the case of the
selection. It toggles between UPPERCASE, lowercase and Camel Case (first letter
in capital) and should come handy if you’ve accidentally left the CAPS LOCK key
on while typing.
5.
Write Anywhere on a Page
Did
you know that you can use your Word document as a whiteboard and write your
text anywhere on the page. Just double-click wherever you want to type your
text and start writing.
a
character, you can quickly add it to your document by typing the code followed
by Alt+x. For instance, the code for Indian Rupee symbol is 20B9 – type 20B9,
press Alt+x and the code will be replaced by the actual Rupee symbol.
6. Convert to Plain Text
When
you copy snippet from a web page into Word, all the styles and formatting are
retained. There’s however an easy way to remove the styling from any block of
text in Word – just select the block and press Ctrl+Space Bar and the rich text
will be transformed into plain text.
7. Move Text without Copy-Paste
Most
people use the Cut-Paste (Ctrl-x Ctrl-v) route to move text from one location
to another within a Word document but there’s an alternate way as well.
Highlight any block of text, press F2 and then place the cursor at the spot
where you wish to move that text. Press Enter and the selection will be moved.
8.
Insert Unicode Characters
If
you know the Unicode code of a character, you can quickly add it to your
document by typing the code followed by Alt+x. For instance, the code for
Indian Rupee symbol is 20B9 – type 20B9, press Alt+x and the code will be
replaced by the actual Rupee symbol.
9.
Add Placeholder Text
There’s
a Lorem Ipsum generator built inside Word to help you insert filler text
anywhere inside the document. Type =rand(p,l) and press Enter to insert ‘p’
number of paragraphs each having ‘l’ lines. For instance, =rand(3,6) will
generate 3 dummy paragraphs with 6 lines each.
The
other option is =lorem(p,l) that fills your Word document with pseudo-Latin
text commonly used in web design projects.
10.
Word’s Hidden Calculator
Your
copy of Microsoft Word has a hidden calculator that can handle all the common
arithmetic operations. You can write the Maths expression in your document,
highlight it and press the Calculator button – the results of the calculation
will be displayed in the status bar.
Go
to Word Options -> Quick Access Toolbar, switch to All Commands and add the
Calculate Command to your Quick Access Toolbar.
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