Office For Seniors For Dummies
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After you discover keyboard shortcuts in Office, you’ll wonder how you ever functioned without them. Keyboard shortcuts make common tasks faster and easier. By pressing a key combination, you can duplicate many of the most commonly used commands and tasks.

Some of the keyboard shortcuts are the same across multiple applications, whereas others are specific to a particular application.

Common shortcuts in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

By pressing a couple of keys in combination, you can save time with simple tasks in Office, such as copying text from one place and pasting it somewhere else. The keyboard shortcuts included here work equally well in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Both mouse and keyboard methods are provided here.

To Do This … With the Mouse With the Keyboard
Open a file File→Open Ctrl+O
Create a new file File→New Ctrl+N
Print active document File→Print Ctrl+P
Save your work (first time), or resave with same settings File→Save Ctrl+S
Save your work with different name, location, or type File→Save As F12
Copy selection to Clipboard Home→Copy Ctrl+C
Cut selection to Clipboard Home→Cut Ctrl+X
Paste selection to Clipboard Home→Paste Ctrl+V
Open the Paste Special dialog box Home→Paste→Paste Special Ctrl+Shift+V
Display shortcut menu for selected item Right-click item Shift+F10
Left-align a paragraph Home→Left Align Ctrl+L
Center a paragraph Home→Center Ctrl+E
Right-align a paragraph Home→Right Align Ctrl+R
Make text bold Home→Bold Ctrl+B
Make text italicized Home→Italic Ctrl+I
Make text underlined Home→Underline Ctrl+U
Make text larger Home→Increase Font Size Ctrl+>
Make text smaller Home→Decrease Font Size Ctrl+<
Undo previous action Undo button on Quick Access toolbar Ctrl+Z
Redo previous Undo Redo button on Quick Access toolbar Ctrl+Y
Insert hyperlink Insert→Hyperlink Ctrl+K
Get help Type in Tellme what you want to do box F1
Close the active file File→Close Ctrl+F4
Close the application Close button on application window Alt+F4
Check spelling Review→Spelling F7

Word text entry and formatting shortcuts

Word offers you many ways to interact with your document. There are multiple keyboard shortcuts that can be a great time-saver. With these keyboard shortcuts, you can speed up text editing and formatting.

To Do This … With the Keyboard
Start a new line in the same paragraph Shift+Enter
Insert a page break Ctrl+Enter
Insert a column break Ctrl+Shift+Enter
Clear formatting Ctrl+spacebar
Make text subscript Ctrl+=
Make text superscript Ctrl+Shift++
Delete one character to the left Backspace
Delete one word to the left Ctrl+Backspace
Delete one character to the right Delete
Delete one word to the right Ctrl+Delete

Word view shortcuts

Ever feel like you just don’t have the right perspective? Well, Word makes it easy to change your document view so that you can gain a different perspective. With these keyboard shortcuts, you can switch among various views in Word.

Switch to This View With the Keyboard
Print Layout Alt+Ctrl+P
Outline Alt+Ctrl+O
Draft Alt+Ctrl+N

Word symbol shortcuts

Depending on how you choose to use Word, you may need a special symbol. With these keyboard shortcuts, you can insert common symbols in Word. Use these keyboard shortcuts instead of the Insert→Symbol command to insert common typographical symbols.

Symbol Shortcut
Em dash Alt+Ctrl+minus sign
En dash Ctrl+minus sign
Copyright Alt+Ctrl+C
Registered trademark Alt+Ctrl+R
Trademark Alt+Ctrl+T
Ellipsis Alt+Ctrl+period

Excel number formatting shortcuts

Many shortcuts are available that can save you time with simple tasks in Excel, such as copying text from one place and pasting it somewhere else in your document. You can use these keyboard shortcuts instead of the Number drop-down list on the Home tab to apply number formatting to cells in Excel.

To Apply This Number Format … Use This Key Combination
General Ctrl+Shift+~
Currency with two decimal places, negative numbers
in parentheses
Ctrl+Shift+$
Percentage, no decimal places Ctrl+Shift+%
Scientific, two decimal places Ctrl+Shift+^
Date format with day, month, and year Ctrl+Shift+#
Time format with hour and minute, AM or PM Ctrl+Shift+@
Number format, two decimal places, thousands separator,
minus sign for negative values
Ctrl+Shift+!

Excel entry and formatting shortcuts

Excel offers you many tools to save time with everyday tasks. With these keyboard shortcuts, you can enter and modify data in Excel. These keyboard shortcuts can save you time when entering and formatting data in Excel.

To Do This … Use This Key Combination
Enter the current time Ctrl+Shift+:
Enter the current date Ctrl+;
Apply an outline border Ctrl+Shift+&
Remove an outline border Ctrl+Shift+_
Display or hide formulas in cells Ctrl+`
Display the Format Cells dialog box Ctrl+1
Hide selected rows Ctrl+9
Hide selected columns Ctrl+0

 

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book author:

Faithe Wempen is an adjunct instructor at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI). She is the author of over 150 books on computer hardware and software, and an online technology courseware developer whose courses have educated over a quarter of a million people.

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