All of the Best Microsoft Word Keyboard Shortcuts

Microsoft Word might be one of the most mastered, but there are still many keyboard shortcuts you can use to make things easier and faster.

We’re going to give you a list of the best keyboard shortcuts, but don’t worry–we’ll highlight some important ones and explain when they should be used. We know that everyone has their own needs for this information so we’ve tried our hardest not only put up clean codes with simple templates just in case someone wants something more detailed than what’s included here!

If you’re looking for a keyboard shortcut to do something specific in Word, then this list will be helpful. We’ve tried not include every possible option because there are too many and they can vary depending on your version or computer’s operating system (for instance: Mac users might have different options than PC gamers). But most of these shortcuts should work no matter what software program it is that YOU use!

General Program Microsoft Word Keyboard Shortcuts

There are a number of keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Word that can save you time when working on your document. For example, there’s an easy way to copy and paste sections from one place within the file into another with just two clicks!

• Ctrl+N: Create a new document
• Ctrl+O: Open an existing document
• Ctrl+S: Save a document
• F12:Open the Save As dialog box
• Ctrl+W: Close a document
• Ctrl+Z: Undo an action
• Ctrl+Y: Redo an action
• Alt+Ctrl+S: Split a window or remove the split view
• Ctrl+Alt+V: Print Layout View
• Ctrl+Alt+O: Outline View
• Ctrl+Alt+N: Draft View
• Ctrl+F2: Print Preview View
• F1: Open the Help pane
• Alt+Q: Go to the “Tell me what you want to do” box
• F9: Refresh the field codes in the current selection
• Ctrl+F: Search a document
• F7:Run a spelling and grammar check
• Shift+F7:Open the thesaurus. If you have a word selected, Shift+F7 looks up that word in the thesaurus.

Moving Around in a Document

With a keyboard, you can quickly navigate through your document by using shortcuts. This is especially helpful if there are long passages and want to skip them without scrolling through the entire thing or just need an easy way to move between words/sentences easily!

• Left/Right Arrow: Move the insertion point (cursor) of one character to the left or right
• Ctrl+Left/Right Arrow: Move one word to the left or right
• Up/Down Arrow: Move up or down one line
• Ctrl+Up/Down Arrow: Move up or down one paragraph
• End: Move to the end of the current line
• Ctrl+End: Move to the end of the document
• Home: Move to the beginning of the current line
• Ctrl+Home: Move to the beginning of the document
• Page Up/Page Down: Move up or down one screen
• Ctrl+Page Up/Page Down: Move to the previous or next to browse object (after performing a search)
• Alt+Ctrl+Page Up/Page Down: Move to the top or bottom of the current window
• F5: Open the Find dialog box with the “Go-To” tab selected, so you can quickly move to a specific page, section, bookmark, and so on.
• Shift+F5:Cycle through the last three locations where the insertion point was placed. If you just opened a document, Shift+F5 moves you to the last point you were editing before closing the document.

Selecting Text

You may have noticed from the previous section that there are different ways to move your insertion point around, and one way is using arrow keys. However, if you want more control over where this goes then use Ctrl + Shift combo which lets you select text in various modes like selecting words before or after it’s written down on screen!

• Shift+Left/Right Arrow: Extend your current selection by one character to the left or right
• Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right Arrow: Extend your current selection by one word to the left or right
• Shift+Up/Down Arrow: Extend selection up or down one line
• Ctrl+Shift+Up/Down Arrow: Extend selection to the beginning or end of the paragraph
• Shift+End: Extend selection to the end of the line
• Shift+Home: Extend selection to the beginning of the line
• Ctrl+Shift+Home/End: Extend selection to the beginning or end of the document
• Shift+Page Down/Page Up: Extend selection down or up one screen
• Ctrl+A: Select the entire document
• F8:Enter selection mode. While in this mode, you can use the arrow keys to extend your selection. You can also press F8 up to five times to extend the selection outward. The first press enters selection mode, the second press selects the word next to the insertion point, the third select the whole sentence, the fourth all the characters in the paragraph, and the fifth the whole document. Pressing Shift+F8 works that same cycle, but backward. And you can press Esc any time to leave selection mode. It takes a little playing with to get the hang of it, but it’s pretty fun!
• Ctrl+Shift+F8:Selects a column. Once the column is selected, you can use the left and right arrow keys to extend the selection to other columns.

Editing Text

Word also provides a number of keyboard shortcuts for editing text too.

• Backspace: Delete one character to the left
• Ctrl+Backspace: Delete one word to the left
• Delete: Delete one character to the right
• Ctrl+Delete: Delete one word to the right
• Ctrl+C: Copy or graphics to the Clipboard text
• Ctrl+X: Cut selected text or graphics to the Clipboard
• Ctrl+V: Paste the Clipboard contents
• Ctrl+F3:Cut selected text to the Spike. The Spike is an interesting variant on the regular clipboard. You can keep cutting text to the Spike and Word remembers it all. When you paste the Spikes contents, Word pastes everything you cut, but places each item on its own line.
• Ctrl+Shift+F3:Paste the Spike contents
• Alt+Shift+R: Copy the header or footer used in the previous section of the document

Applying Character Formatting

Word includes a variety of keyboard combos for applying character formatting (and paragraph styles, but that’s covered in the next section. You can use these shortcuts to apply different types or colors from one place without having to go back into your document if you are working on it digitally!

• Ctrl+B: Apple bold formatting
• Ctrl+I: Apply italic formatting
• Ctrl+U: Apply underline formatting
• Ctrl+Shift+W: Apply underline formatting to words, but not the spaces between words
• Ctrl+Shift+D: Apply double underline formatting
• Ctrl+D: Open the Font dialog box
• Ctrl+Shift+< or >: Decrease or increase font size one preset size at a time
• Ctrl+[ or ]: Decrease or increase font size one point at a time
• Ctrl+=:Apply subscript formatting
• Ctrl+Shift+Plus key: Apply superscript formatting
• Shift+F3:Cycle through case formats for your text. Available formats are sentence case (capital first letter, everything else lower case), lowercase, uppercase, title case (the first letter in each word capitalized), and toggle case (which reverses whatever’s there).
• Ctrl+Shift+A: Formats all letters as uppercase
• Ctrl+Shift+K: Formats all letters as lowercase
• Ctrl+Shift+C: Copies the character formatting of a selection
• Ctrl+Shift+V: Pastes formatting onto the selected text
• Ctrl+Space: Removes all manual character formatting from a selection

Applying Paragraph Formatting

For those who love to format their work in perfect detail, there are tons of shortcuts within Word.

• Ctrl+M: Increases a paragraph’s indent one level each time you press it
• Ctrl+Shift+M: Reduces a paragraph’s indent one level each time you press it
• Ctrl+T: Increases a hanging indent each time you press it
• Ctrl+Shift+T: Reduces a hanging indent each time you press it
• Ctrl+E: Center a paragraph
• Ctrl+L:Left-align a paragraph
• Ctrl+R:Right-align a paragraph
• Ctrl+J: Justify a paragraph
• Ctrl+1: Set single-spacing
• Ctrl+2:Set double-spacing
• Ctrl+5: Set 1.5 line Spacing
• Ctrl+0:Remove one-line spacing preceding a paragraph
• Ctrl+Shift+S: Open a popup window for applying styles
• Ctrl+Shift+N: Apply the normal paragraph style
• Alt+Ctrl+1:Apply the Heading 1 style
• Alt+Ctrl+2:Apply the Heading 2 style
• Alt+Ctrl+3:Apply the Heading 3 style
• Ctrl+Shift+L:Apply the List style
• Ctrl+Q: Remove all paragraph formatting

Inserting Things

Keyboard command shortcuts are the key to being productive on your computer. Whether you want a section break, or don’t feel like digging through all those common symbols- Word has got you covered!

• Shift+Enter: Insert a line break
• Ctrl+Enter:Insert a page break
• Ctrl+Shift+Enter:Insert a column break
• Ctrl+hyphen (-): Insert an optional hyphen or en dash. An optional hyphen tells Word not to use a hyphen unless the word breaks at the end of a line. If it does, Word will use a hyphen where you placed it.
• Alt+Ctrl+hyphen (-):Insert an em dash
• Ctrl+Shift+hyphen (-):Insert a non-breaking hyphen. This tells Word not to break a word at the end of a line, even if there’s a hyphen there. This would be useful, for example, if you included something like a telephone number and wanted to make sure it all appeared on one line.
• Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar:Insert a non-breaking space
• Alt+Ctrl+C:Insert a copyright symbol
• Alt+Ctrl+R: Insert a registered trademark symbol
• Alt+Ctrl+T:Insert a trademark symbol

Working with Outlines

There are a few shortcuts that I use when outlining to help me get my ideas organized and make sure there isn’t any confusion about what should go where.

• Alt+Shift+Left/Right Arrow: Promote (move to the left) or demote (move to the right) a line
• Ctrl+Shift+N: Demote an outline level to the regular body text
• Alt+Shift+Up/Down Arrow: Move the line with the insertion point up or down in the outline
• Alt+Shift+Plus or Minus keys: Expand or collapse text under a heading
• Alt+Shift+A: Expand or collapse all text or headings in an outline
• Alt+Shift+L: Show the first line of body text or all body text
• Alt+Shift+1: Show all headings that have the Heading 1 style applied
• Alt+Shift+any other number keys: Show all headings up to that level

Working with Tables

It’s like moving around in a text-based game! Instead of clicking where you want to go, check out these combos:

There are many different features that can make it more interactive and fun.

• Tab: Move to the next cell in a row and select its contents, if there are any
• Shift+Tab: Move to the previous cell in a row and select its contents, if there are any
• Alt+Home/End: Move to the first or last cell in a row
• Alt+Page Up/Page Down: Move to the first or last cell in a column
• Up/Down Arrow: Move to the previous or next row
• Shift+Up/Down Arrow: Select the cell in the row above or below the insertion point or selection. Keep pressing this combo to keep selecting more cells. If you have multiple cells in a row selected, this combo selects those same cells in the row above or below.
• Alt+5 on a keypad (with NumLock off): Select an entire table

And there you have it, folks. If these new keyboard shortcuts have made your life in Word a little easier then I’ve done my job correctly!

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