Jul 31 2009
Microsoft Word 2007 Selection Techniques
Before you can format or edit your text, you need to highlight it. Highlighting your text is a way of telling Microsoft Word that you plan to work with a certain piece of text. (Highlighting is also known as selecting.)
The simplest way of selecting text is to position the cursor where you want to start highlighting, click and hold the mouse button down and drag to the spot where you want to end the highlight. It is not essential that you drag across every single line that you want to highlight. It is sufficient to drag in a straight line from the start to the finish.
To deselect your text and remove any highlight, click somewhere in your text. You will then see the flashing cursor appear at the point where you click.
Another simple way of selecting text is to select the entire document. This is done via the "Select All" command. In Word 2007, the "Select All" command is found in the "Editing" section of the "Home" Tab. Click to display the "Select" menu and choose "Select All".
The "Select All" command can be found in lots of programs and lots of different environments. It can also be done via the keyboard using Control-A: that is to say, keep the Control key held down while typing "A".
As well as selecting characters by dragging across them, Word also allows you to select whole lines. To do this, place the cursor in the left margin and you'll notice that it changes to an arrow pointing to the right. Once the cursor changes, you can simply click once to select a single line or click and drag to select multiple lines.
Another way of highlighting text is to click several times. To highlight a single word, double click on the word; to highlight an entire paragraph, click three times anywhere in the paragraph.
It is also possible to select text via the keyboard. Most of these techniques involve using the Shift key. One popular technique is click followed by Shift-click. First, click to set the start of the area that needs to be selected; next hold down the Shift key and click to set the point where you want the selection to end. All the text between the two clicks will then be selected.
To select text without the mouse, use the cursor keys on your keyboard to position the cursor where you want your selection to start. Next, press the Shift key in conjunction with one of the cursor keys. To highlight character by character, press the right or left arrow depending on the direction that you want to move. To select line by line press the down arrow or up arrow.
The Shift key can also be used in conjunction with Control. For example, if you hold down the Control and Shift keys and press the right arrow, you will select word by word instead of character by character. In a similar way, if you hold down Shift and Control and press the down arrow, you will select paragraph by paragraph.
The Home and End keys can also be used in making selections. For example, if the cursor is positioned in the middle of a line, pressing Shift and Home will highlight from that position to the start of the line while pressing Shift and End will highlight from the cursor position to the end of the line. Holding down Control and Shift while pressing the right arrow will highlight from the cursor position to the start of the document. Control, Shift and End will highlight from the cursor position to the end of the document.
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