Time-saving tricks for Word and Notepad

by Brian Livingston

April 30, 2001 —

My readers always seem to be interested in learning about new and undocumented features of Windows and major Windows applications, and I'm happy to oblige. I was recently asked, for example, how to discover and remember the apparently endless number of keyboard shortcuts available in Microsoft Word 2000. Here's a fairly easy way to find them, but good luck remembering them.

Step 1. In Word 2000, pull down the Tools menu, click Macro, and then Macros.

Step 2. In the list box entitled Macros In, select Word commands.

Step 3. In the Macro name list, scroll down and select ListCommands.

Step 4. Click the Run button.

Step 5. In the dialog box that appears, select "Current menu and keyboard settings" or "All Word commands," and then click OK. The former option produces a shorter list than the latter option. But both result in a new document that you can format, print, or save.

Another way to get a good list, if you don't need an editable document, is to visit support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q211/9/82.asp.

Whichever way you look at it, Word has a huge number of keyboard shortcuts. It's been said that the average PC user exploits only 10 percent of an application such as Word. By studying and using Word's shortcut charts, you should be able to increase that by a few percentage points.

One of my favorite time savers is Shift+F3. This toggles a selection of text between all caps, all lowercase, and initial caps (the first letter capitalized). This is handy when you want to convert some text from all caps to all lowercase without having to retype it. Yes, I know Ctrl+Shift+A turns All Caps format on and off, but this isn't as versatile as Shift+F3.

Here's a little secret you probably haven't heard. Let's say you've been editing your r

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