100 MS Word Shortcut Keys For Windows – Be A MS Office Expert

  •   Written By
  • Published on
    April 9th, 2019
  • Updated on
    October 9, 2020
  • Read Time
    7 minutes

MS Word is used for drafting a detailed document so that it looks attractive. I know you must be using MS Word with a combination of Keyboard and Mouse and novice usually does that. But a person who knows most of the MS word shortcut keys is a professional user of MS Word.

So why are you wasting your time on moving the cursor, rather than just pressing the keys on the keyboard and doing the same work in less time?

Are you unaware of the Shortcut Keys?

Have you ever realized that it will save a lot of time and effort?

I suppose that neither you are aware of the shortcut keys, nor you have ever realized. So don’t worry I will be telling you 100different shortcut keys according to their usage for a particular work. In the beginning, you’ll find it difficult to use shortcuts but once you get good hands on it then it would be the easiest task to do.

It is better to be a smart worker, rather than a hard worker. Save your time, efforts and energy. Let’s see those MS Word Shortcuts which can be used during your work.

General Shortcuts
1. Ctrl+N Open New Document.
2. Ctrl+O Open an Existing Document.
3. Ctrl+S Save the Document.
4. F12 Open Save As Dialogue Box.
5. Ctrl + W Close the Document.
6. Ctrl + Z Undo any Activity.
7. Ctrl + Y Redo the Activity.
8. Alt + Ctrl + S Remove a Split Window or Split Window.
9. Ctrl + Alt + V View Print Layout.
10. Ctrl + Alt + O Outline View.
11. Ctrl + Alt + N Draft View.
12. Ctrl + F2 View Print Preview.
13. F1 Open Help.
14. Alt + Q Opens Tell me whatyou want to do Box.
15. F9 Refresh the Selected Field Codes.
16. Ctrl + F Find any Word in the Document.
17. F7 Grammar Check.
18. Shift + F7 Opens Thesaurus and finds the meaning of the Selected word.

If you want to navigate the Text Cursor then you can do that without a mouse. Let’s see the Navigating MS Word Shortcut keys.

Document Navigation Shortcuts
19. Shift + Left/Right Arrow Extend one by one character Selection to the Left or Right.
20. Ctrl + Shift + Left/Right Arrow Extend one by one Word Selection to the Left or Right.
21. Shift + Up/Down Arrow Selecting Up or Down Line one by one.
22. Ctrl + Shift + Up/Down Arrow Selecting Up or Down Whole Paragraph one by one.
23. Shift + End Selection of Characters up to End Line.
24. Shift + Home Selection of Characters up to the First line.
25. Ctrl + Shift + Home/End Selection of Characters to Beginning or End.
26. Shift + Page up/Page Down Select Characters up to one screen Up or Down.
27. Ctrl + A Select Entire Document.
28. Ctrl + Shift + 8 Selects a Column.

Sometimes the user wants to edit a document fast. So he can use some of the editing shortcuts.

Editing Shortcuts
29. Backspace Erase One Character to the Left.
30. Ctrl + Backspace Erase one word to the Left.
31. Delete Erase one Character to the Right.
32. Ctrl + Delete Erase one Word to the Right.
33. Ctrl + C Copy Selected Text.
34. Ctrl + X Cut Selected Text.
35. Ctrl + V Paste Cut or Copied Text.
36. Ctrl + Shift + F3 Paste Spike Contents.
37. Alt + Shift + R Copy Header or Footer used in the Previous Document.

Every user wants that his contents look attractive. So it can only be done by editing the character and using clear texts. So here you can grab some Characters editing Shortcuts.

Characters Formatting Shortcuts
38. Ctrl + B Bold Texts.
39. Ctrl + I Italicize Texts.
40. Ctrl + U Underline Texts.
41. Ctrl + Shift + W Apply to underline below words only and not under Space.
42. Ctrl + Shift + D Apply Double Underline.
43. Ctrl + D Open Font Dialogue Box.
44. Ctrl + Shift + > or < Increase or Decrease the font Size of the Character.
45. Ctrl + ] or [ Increase or Decrease the font size of a particular segment only.
46. Ctrl + “=” Apply Subscript Formatting.
47. Ctrl + Shift + Plus Key Apply Superscript Formatting.
48. Ctrl + Shift + A Changes All Letters to Uppercase.
49. Ctrl + Shift + K Changes All Letters to Lowercase.
50. Ctrl + Shift + C Copies the Character Format in an Existing Document.
51. Ctrl + Shift + V Paste the Character Format in a new Document.
52. Ctrl + Space Removes Manual Formatting from the Selected Segment.

Now, let’s come to the Paragraph editing through shortcuts. You can edit the entire paragraph using the MS Word Shortcut keys.

Paragraph Editing Shortcut Keys
53. Ctrl + M Increase Indent Level of Paragraph every time you press it.
54. Ctrl + Shift + M Decreases Indent Level of Paragraph every time you press it.
55. Ctrl + T Hanging Indent is Increased Every time you Press it.
56. Ctrl + Shift + T Hanging Indent is Decreased Every time you Press it.
57. Ctrl + E Centre a Paragraph.
58. Ctrl + L Left Alignment of a Paragraph.
59. Ctrl + R Right Alignment of a Paragraph.
60. Ctrl + J Justify a Paragraph.
61. Ctrl + 1 Single Spacing Between Two Lines.
62. Ctrl + 2 Double Spacing Between Two Lines.
63. Ctrl + 5 1.5 Line Spacing Between two Lines.
64. Ctrl + 0 Remove one line Spacing of a Preceding paragraph.
65. Ctrl + Shift + S Open window for applying Styles.
66. Ctrl + Shift + N Apply Normal paragraph Style.
67. Alt + Ctrl + 1 Heading 1 Style.
68. Alt + Ctrl + 2 Heading 2 Style.
69. Alt + Ctrl + 3 Heading 3 Style.
70. Ctrl + Shift + L Apply List Style.
71. Ctrl + Q Remove all formatting from the paragraph.

Here are some of the inserting shortcuts where you can insert various things using the Word Shortcuts buttons.

Inserting Shortcuts
72. Shift + Enter Insert link Break.
73. Ctrl + Enter Insert Page Break.
74. Ctrl + Shift + Enter Insert Column Break.
75. Alt + Ctrl + Hyphen ‘-‘ Insert an em Dash.
76. Ctrl + Shift + Space Insert Non-Breaking Space.
77. Alt + Ctrl + C Insert Copyright Symbol.
78. Alt + Ctrl +R Insert Registered Trademark Symbol.
79. Alt + Ctrl + T Insert Trademark Symbol.

Some shortcuts for the Outline of a word file.

Outline Shortcuts
80. Alt + Shift + Left/Right Arrow Move a line Left or Right.
81. Ctrl + Shift + N Demote Outline lever to Regular Text.
82. Alt + Shift + Up/Down Arrow Move the Line Up or Down in the Outline.
83. Alt + Shift + Plus or Minus Key Enlarge or Collapse Characters under Heading.
84. Alt + Shift + A Enlarge or Collapse All Characters under Heading.
85. Alt + Shift + L Highlight First line of a Body or Text.
86. Alt + Shift + 1 Highlights all texts Having Heading 1 texts.
87. Alt + Shift + Any Number Key Shows All Texts according to the Heading Size.

Finally, here are some of the Tables Shortcuts. Once you insert a table in a word document then you can apply these shortcuts.

Tables Shortcuts
88. Tab Navigate to the Next Cell in a Row.
89. Shift + Tab Navigate to the Previous Cell.
90. Alt + Home Go to the First cell of the Row in a table.
91. Alt + End Go to the Last cell of the Row in a table.
92. Alt + Page up Go to the First cell of the Column in a table.
93. Alt + Page Down Go to the Last cell of the Column in a table.
94. Up Arrow Keys Move to the previous cell in upward Direction.
95. Down Arrow Keys Move to next cell downward Direction.
96. Shift + Up Select the Cells above the current cell.
97. Shift + Down Select the Cell Below the Current Cell.
98. Alt + F5 Select full table.
99. Shift + F3 Change Keyboard Case.
100. Ctrl + F3 Cut Selected texts to the Spike.


Well, you have discovered 100 MS Word shortcut keys which will save a lot of time and effort. You can’t mug up all the shortcuts but try to remember some frequently used ones. I can guarantee that it will be efficient and you will enjoy applying the shortcuts. I have covered almost all the possible shortcuts in this article. Apply them according to your needs. Hope you liked this article.

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