Selecting Text


Selecting (highlighting) text is an essential word processing skill. In many situations, you have to select text before issuing a command so that Word knows what text you want the command to affect. For example, you have to select text before cutting and pasting it or applying many kinds of formatting.

Using the Mouse

The most basic way of selecting text is to drag across it with the mouse. To do this, you position the I-beam at the beginning of the text you want to select, press and hold down the mouse button, drag across the text, and then release the mouse button. When text is selected, it becomes white against a black background, as shown in Figure 2.16. If you want to deselect text (remove the highlighting) without doing anything to it, click anywhere in the text area of the Word window, or press a navigation key such as one of the arrow keys, Home, or End.

Figure 2.16. Selected text is white against a black background.

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If you accidentally drag over too much text, you can remove the extra text from the selection by keeping the mouse button held down as you drag back up and/or to the left.

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If you select some text, release the mouse button, and then realize that you selected too much or too little, you can't point to the end of the selection and start dragging to extend or shorten it. If you do this, you end up moving the selected text. (Dragging selected text performs a type of cutting and pasting called drag-and-drop .) Instead, you need to either click elsewhere to deselect the text and then start the highlighting process again, or press the Shift key and then click with the mouse to extend or shrink the selection.


Word assumes that when you're dragging with the mouse, you want to select entire words at a time. This can make it difficult to be precise about what you're selecting. If you find this behavior vexing, follow these steps to turn it off:

  1. Choose Tools, Options .

  2. Click the Edit tab.

  3. Clear the When Selecting, Automatically Select Entire Word check box.

  4. Click OK .

Using the Keyboard

Although dragging always works to select text, it is often not the most efficient method. Table 2.2 lists some shortcuts for selecting different amounts of text.

Table 2.2. Selection Shortcuts

Amount of Text to Select

Shortcut

One word

Double-click the word.

One sentence

Ctrl+click the sentence. (This only works if nothing else is currently selected.)

One line

Click in the selection bar to the left of the line.

One paragraph

Double-click in the selection bar to the left of the paragraph. (You can also triple-click directly on the paragraph.)

Entire document

Triple-click or Ctrl+click anywhere in the selection bar. (Ctrl+click only works if nothing else is currently selected.)

Any amount of text

Click at the beginning of the text you want to select, and then Shift+click at the end of the text.

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Three of the shortcuts involve clicking in the selection bar , the white area in the left margin of the page (see Figure 2.17). When the mouse pointer is in this area, it becomes a white arrow angled toward your text.

Figure 2.17. The selection bar is the white area to the left of your text.

graphics/02fig17.jpg


Selecting Multiple Blocks of Text

You can select more than one nonadjacent block of text at the same time. You might do this if you want to apply the same formatting to several words in a paragraph, or cut and paste several sentences from one location to another. To select multiple blocks of text, select the first block using whatever method you like, and then hold down the Ctrl key as you drag over the second block. If you want to add more blocks of text to the selection, just Ctrl+drag over them as well (see Figure 2.18).

Figure 2.18. Ctrl+drag to select multiple blocks of text.

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If you like using the keyboard, you may prefer to select text by using only the keyboard. All of the keyboard selection techniques involve adding the Shift key to a navigation keyboard shortcut (whichever one travels the distance that you want to select). Table 2.3 lists some of the most common keyboard selection techniques.

Table 2.3. Keyboard Selection Techniques

Keyboard Technique

Amount Selected

Shift+

One character to the right

Shift+

One character to the left

Shift+

One line down

Shift+

One line up

Shift+Ctrl+

One word to the right

Shift+Ctrl+

One word to the left

Shift+Ctrl+

One paragraph down

Shift+Ctrl+

One paragraph up

Shift+End

From the insertion point to the end of the line

Shift+Home

From the insertion point to the beginning of the line

Shift+Ctrl+End

From the insertion point to the end of the document

Shift+Ctrl+Home

From the insertion point to the beginning of the document

Ctrl+A

The entire document (same as choosing Edit, Select All)

When using the keyboard techniques that involve pressing an arrow key, you can quickly add to the current selection by keeping the other keys in the combination held down as you repeatedly press the arrow key. For example, to select six words to the right, you would hold down the Shift and Ctrl keys as you pressed the right-arrow key six times.

One of the handiest uses of keyboard selection techniques is to adjust the size of a selection after you've already released the mouse button. For example, if you dragged over a couple of sentences, but accidentally didn't include the period at the end of the last sentence, you can press Shift+ to extend the selection one character to the right to include the period.

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You can also press the Shift key and then click with the mouse to extend or shrink the selection.




Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Office Word 2003 in 24 Hours
Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Office Word 2003 in 24 Hours
ISBN: 067232556X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 315
Authors: Heidi Steele

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