This guide provides some tips and tricks to help you make the most of MS Word.
The list is not exhaustive, but is designed to make daily use a little easier.
Click the headings below to jump to a section.
Set default fonts
Do you change your font settings each time you create or edit a Word document?
Save time by specifying the default font, style and colour.
From the home tab, open Font settings then make your choices and select ‘Set As Default’.
You can change your paragraph settings in the same way. From the home tab, open Paragraph settings then make your choices and select ‘Set As Default’.
Zoom slider
Use the zoom slider in the bottom right-hand corner to quickly zoom in or out.
Smart lookup
This function is a shortcut to searching the internet from within MS Word.
Highlight the word or phrase that you’d like to look up, right-click and select ‘Smart Lookup’.
The tool will open on the right-hand side.
Keyboard shortcuts
These shortcuts can save a lot of time when creating and editing documents.
Highlight the relevant text or place your cursor where needed, and then use these shortcuts.
- Ctrl + C: Copy
When you want to duplicate a section of text, this will add it to your clipboard. - Ctrl + V: Paste
When you want to duplicate a section of text, this will ‘paste’ it in its new position. - Ctrl + X: Cut
When you want to move a section, of text, this will add it to your clipboard and remove it from the original location. - Ctrl + Z: Undo
If you make a mistake, this will undo your most recent change(s) - Ctrl + Y OR F4: Redo
This will redo an action that you have previously undone. - Ctrl + F: Find
Use this function when you want to quickly find a word or section of a document. - Ctrl + H: Find and replace
Automatically replace a certain word or phrase with another that you specify. - Ctrl + K: Insert hyperlink
You may want to link to a website, to another document, or to a section within your current document. - Ctrl + space: Clear formatting
This function will remove all formatting from a section of text in one go, including font type, size, text attributes (bold, italics, underlining) and colour. The section will revert to your default font settings. - Ctrl + Enter: Insert page break
A page break allows you to end a page without filling it with text, and is useful for ensuring that a new section always starts on a new page. - Ctrl + backspace: delete whole words
Save time when deleting text by placing the cursor at the end of the word where you want to start deleting word by word instead of letter by letter.
Last Updated on 4th August 2022 by sgrey
