Here’s how to work faster and smarter with MS Word

KATHMANDU, Feb 4: There are many alternatives out in the market, but Microsoft Word remains one of the most popular word processors available.

We all know how to use MS Word, sure, but we really could do so much better and increase our productivity by using these time saving tricks and shortcuts.

Delete an entire word

Instead of deleting a single letter, pressing Ctrl + Backspace will delete the entire word behind the cursor. Similarly, pressing Ctrl + Delete will erase the entire word ahead of the cursor. This makes deleting text quicker if you screw up a whole word.

Navigate through words, lines or pages

Moving the cursor around manually while typing is a great way to make your work take longer than it needs to. To speed up the process, move the cursor around with keyboard shortcuts. To move it to the beginning of the previous word, use Ctrl + left arrow. To move it to the beginning of the next word, use Ctrl + right arrow. To go to the line above or below, use Ctrl + up arrow and Ctrl + down arrow, respectively.

Similarly, use Home to go to the beginning of a line, and End to go to the end of the line. Use Ctrl + Home to go to the beginning of the text and Ctrl + End to reach the very end of the text.

Instead of reaching for your mouse's scroll key, simply press Page Up or Page Down to scroll up or down the page.

Highlight text

Instead of using mouse to highlight text for editing, use Ctrl + A to highlight the entire text. If you want to highlight only a part of the text, use Shift + left/right arrow to highlight the next/previous letter. If you want to highlight a word at a time, use Ctrl + Shift + left/right arrow. To highlight a whole line, use Shift + End. Also try using Shift + up/down arrow or Shift + Page Up/Page Down keys for other highlighting options.

If you really want to use the mouse, note that double clicking on a word highlights it at once, and three quick clicks highlights the whole paragraph. Another trick is to first click on the beginning of the text you want to highlight and hold down the Shift key and click the end of the text you want highlighted. Clicking anywhere in a sentence while holding Ctrl key will highlight a sentence at once.

Change font size

Highlight a text and use Ctrl + [ and Ctrl + ] to increase and decrease font size respectively. Pressing Ctrl + Shift + < or > serves the same purpose, too.

Change alignment

To align your text on the left of the page, use Ctrl + L; use Ctrl + R to align it on the right; and Ctrl + E to align it on the center. If you want to justify the paragraph, use Ctrl + J.

Look up for a word

If you've been reading through a long text and want to go back to a particular word, use Ctrl + F and enter the word you've been looking for instead of re-reading the whole text. Pressing Ctrl + F will open up a dialogue box with advanced options like replace the word with something else, and where to specifically look for the word you've been meaning to search.

Making sub and superscript text

If you need to make sub or superscript text (think exponents for superscript), press Ctrl + = for subscript and Ctrl + Shift + = for superscript.

Paste plain text of what was copied

When you copy text from any source, say a website, programs will usually copy any formatting that comes with it, including images. To paste this as plain text, press Ctrl + Shift + V instead of the standard Ctrl + V, and the system will paste unformatted text.

Note that many programs follow this parameter (Chrome, Firefox, etc) but not all, particularly Microsoft programs like Word or Outlook. For those there are a few alternatives that go beyond copying and pasting in Notepad: 1) Ctrl + Alt + V will show a 'Paste Special' dialog box. 2) Ctrl + Spacebar will remove formatting in already pasted text. 3) Download 'Puretext' and choose a hotkey to always paste plain text with it.

Create a table

To quickly create a table, type + and then press the Tab key. Again type a + and again press the Tab key. Repeat as many times as the number of cells you want in your table. Then press Enter.