Microsoft Word keyboard shortcuts.
Format and edit documents faster in Word — the shortcuts that save the most clicks.
The formatting trio you already half-know
Microsoft Word shares its most common shortcuts with the rest of your computer, so you're starting ahead. Ctrl/⌘ + B, I and U handle bold, italic and underline, and the editing basics — copy, paste, undo, save, find — are exactly what you'd expect. The Word-specific wins are in alignment and structure: Ctrl/⌘ + E centres a paragraph, Ctrl/⌘ + L and R align left and right, and Ctrl/⌘ + K turns selected text into a hyperlink. These replace a surprising number of trips up to the ribbon.
Move and select like you mean it
Editing gets dramatically faster once you stop nudging the cursor one character at a time. Hold Ctrl (Option on Mac) to jump the cursor a whole word, and add Shift to select as you move. Ctrl/⌘ + Home and End shoot to the top or bottom of the document. Combined, these let you select a sentence, a paragraph or a jump to a heading without lifting your hands — the kind of precise movement that makes revising a long document far less tedious.
The bigger document tools
For longer work, a few shortcuts matter more than their obscurity suggests. Ctrl/⌘ + Enter inserts a clean page break instead of hammering the Return key. F7 launches spelling and grammar. And the commenting shortcut (Ctrl + Alt + M on Windows, ⌘ + Option + A on Mac) is essential for anyone who reviews or collaborates on documents. Knowing these keeps you in the flow of writing rather than hunting through menus mid-thought.
Adopt them gradually
Pick the three or four you'd use most today — the formatting trio, word-by-word selection, and hyperlinks are a good start — and build from there. Press / to search this page when one escapes you. Note that a few keys differ slightly between Word for Windows and Word for Mac, and by version. If you also build spreadsheets and slides, the Excel and PowerPoint cheatsheets round out the Office set.