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Working with the Keyboard in Microsoft Word

by Aaron Smith on Friday, February 6 2009

Microsoft Word is a behemoth of an application. There is a lot you can do, and there are lots of ways to do things. Here are a few tips for various tasks relating to keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Word. These tips were created using Microsoft Word 2003, but should work with any version. Get a List of All Word Keyboard Shortcuts WARNING: The resulting document of all keyboard shortcuts is immense.

  1. Access the Macros dialog with Alt-F8
  2. In the Macros In combo box, select the Word Commands option
  3. In the Macro name edit box, type in: ListCommands
  4. Press Enter
  5. In the resulting dialog, select the radio button titled "All Word Comands"
  6. Press Enter
Change Any Keyboard Shortcut All of the Microsoft Word commands are listed in a single dialog that lets you add or modify shortcuts.
  1. Press Alt-T for Tools
  2. Press C for Customize
  3. Press Alt-C to select the Commands tab control
  4. Press Alt-K to open the Customize Keyboard dialog
  5. Select the category you're interested in
  6. Tab to the Commands list box
  7. Select the command you're interested in
  8. Press Alt-N to focus the shortcut key edit box
  9. Press the key combination you want to use for the selected command
  10. Press Alt-A to assign the shortcut to the selected command
  11. Repeat as desired
Create Keyboard Shortcuts Using the Mouse The last tip is probably one of the more nifty things Word has to offer. Say that you want to create a shortcut for the strikethrough command, but you don't want to have to weed through all available commands to find it. Here's a quick way to assign a shortcut to the strikethrough function.
  1. Press Control-D to open the Font dialog
  2. Press Control-Alt-Numpad-Plus. At this point, the mouse pointer will become a small clover icon.
  3. Using the Window-Eyes mouse keys, navigate to the Strikethrough check box. Alternatively, tab to the Strikethrough check box, then press Insert-Numpad-Plus to route the mouse to the control
  4. Left click, with Numpad-Slash, the Strikethrough check box
  5. Press the key combination you want to use for the selected command
  6. Press Alt-A to assign the shortcut to the selected command
  7. Tab to the Close button and press Enter
Now you can use the shortcut you assigned to apply the strikethrough attribute to any text you select. How cool is that?

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