Word Processing

Unit 3: Advanced Word Processing Techniques

Lesson 9: Navigating the Word Processor More Effectively

How do you use keyboard shortcuts for the menu commands?

While you are learning a new application such as word processing, it's likely you will use menu commands exclusively to interact with the application. Menu commands are nice for new users, because they organize all of the possible commands you can issue. Once you become familiar with the commands available and what they do, selecting commands from the menus starts to feel more like a nuisance. You have to take your hands off the keyboard and often have to make several selections just to perform one command. This is especially inconvenient as you begin to work with more and more documents. The solution is to learn how to use shortcuts for menu commands.

There are a couple of different types of shortcuts. The two most important are menu shortcuts and command shortcuts.

Menu shortcuts allow you to choose menu items without taking your hands away from the keyboard. To choose a menu item from the keyboard, first access the menu by pressing the Alt key followed by the first letter in the menu name. For example, to display the Edit menu, press the Alt key followed by e. This will display the Edit menu. To choose a command from the displayed menu press the key corresponding to the underlined letter in the command. For example, to choose the Cut command press t.

Command shortcuts allow you to directly specify a command with a key or key combination. For example, the key combination Ctrl+X will perform the Cut command. The notation Ctrl+X means to press and hold the Ctrl key followed by the x key. (You will likely see Ctrl commands specified in upper case, as the X is in Ctrl+X. This doesn't, however, mean you have to enter a capital X.)

The final item to consider is how to find the shortcut key combinations for your favorite commands. The most common menu commands have their keyboard shortcut specified on the menu on which they appear (see the Edit menu above). Shortcut keys aren't listed for all commands. This table lists some keyboard shortcuts that aren't listed in dialog boxes or on menu commands.	Bold	Ctrl+B
	Italic	Ctrl+I
	Underline	Ctrl+U
	Left align	Ctrl+L
	Center align	Ctrl+E
	Right align	Ctrl+R
	Justify	Ctrl+J