Keyboard Shortcuts for MS Word - Learn Quickly

In most of the exams I appeared for this year, in every exam which had computer section, there has been a keyboard shortcut question – I think in one exam there were two shortcut questions!

Keyboard shortcuts, I understand are boring to mug! Who does that? Computer geeks maybe!

But my friends, we, not the computer geeks, need to show the examiners that we know how to use a computer, and hence we need to show ‘em we know keyboard shortcuts among other things!

How to learn the shortcuts? By using them! How else would you remember 40-50 shortcuts?!

Those of you who work on MS-Office/Windows or are from computer background obviously have an advantage – but for the others, you have my support and sympathies and you’ll need to show some eagerness in actually sitting in front of a laptop/desktop and actually trying out all the shortcuts!

No other way friends!

I’m going to list some commonly used/asked MS WORD shortcuts – test yourself and see how many you get right!

Please note, sometimes the shortcuts may differ because of OS or the version of OS or the version of MS Office. The shortcuts I am listing are MS Word 2003 ones (which are compliant in the latest versions as well) – they are most commonly asked.

If you have a different version, you can check for shortcuts from ‘HELP’ option.

A. Microsoft Word – common shortcuts

1. Ctrl + N = will open a new word document
2. Ctrl + O = will open the ‘Open’ box to open previously saved documents
3. Ctrl + W = will close the current word document
4. Ctrl + S = to save the currently open word document
5. Ctrl + P = will give the print option for current document
6. Ctrl + Z = will undo the last action
7. Ctrl + Y = will restore the action undone
8. Ctrl + X = will cut selected item
9. Ctrl + C = will copy selected text/item

10. Ctrl + V = will paste the previously cut/copy selected text/item
11. Ctrl + A = Selects all the text
12. Ctrl + F = will open Find and Replace option/dialogue box

B. Microsoft Word’s Formatting Shortcuts

1. Ctrl + B = will bold-en the selected text
2. Ctrl + I = will italicize the selected text
3. Ctrl + U = will underline the selected text

4. Ctrl + Shift + D = Double underline

5. Ctrl +Shift + > = will increase the font size of selected text
6. Ctrl +Shift + < = will decrease the font size of selected text

7. Ctrl + 2 = double line spacing
8. End = will take you to the end of a line
9. Home = will take you to the beginning of a line
10. Ctrl + End = will take you to the very end of a document (last page/last line/last

                           word!)
11. Ctrl + Home = will take you to the very beginning of a document

12. Shift + F3 = will change the case of letters of selected text (keep pressing the F3 and

                           see how it keeps changing from All CAPS, to all lower, to Sentence 

                           case!)
13. Ctrl + Shift + F = will activate the ‘Font’ option and you can chose the font you want
14. Ctrl + Shift + N = will apply the ‘Normal’ style to the selected text

15. Ctrl + ‘equal sign’ = for superscript.
                                       i.e., select a text first, then do - ‘ctrl + =’.
                                       example: Birds_{(of all kinds)}.

16. Ctrl + Shift + ‘the plus sign’ = for superscript.
                              example: November the 30^th of 2014.
                                              Wats^app!

C. Microsoft Word – insert option shortcuts

1. Ctrl + Enter = will give/insert a page break, i.e., it’ll go to the next page
2. Ctrl + K = to insert a hyperlink
3. Alt + Shift + D = will insert the current Date

4. Alt + Shift + T = will insert the current Time

5. Alt + I + P + C = will open the Clip Art box on the right side of the document
6. Alt + I + P + W = will open the Word Art options box
7. Alt + I + P + H = will insert/open graph/chart input/options box in the form of an excel

                                 sheet! (Try it out!)

8. Alt + I + P + O = will insert an organization flow chart, which you can edit as per your

                                requirement


Okay, 36 shortcuts and only of MS Word – how many did you know?

Must get Computer Awareness ebook for full syllabus