Source: http://www.labnol.org/software/word-tips-tricks/28267/
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.
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.
