Hello again and welcome back to our course on Word 2013.
In this section, we’re going to look at keyboard shortcuts.
Now I must confess that I’m not a great user of keyboard shortcuts myself.
I tend to use keyboard shortcuts that are common across the pieces of software that
I use on a day to day basis, things like Control-C to Copy, Control-X to Cut, Control-V to Paste.
But there are so many commands and I use quite a few different pieces of software that I
find it very difficult to remember them all and to not get them confused between the pieces
of software that I use.
But I know many people who are great fans of using keyboard shortcuts and if you’re
good with keyboard shortcuts, they can provide a very fast way of working.
So in this section, we’re going to look at some of the key things you need to know
in Word 2013 and primarily about where to get the information you need about keyboard
shortcuts.
Now I’ve mentioned quite a few keyboard shortcuts already and the first one that I
mentioned already that we’re going to use now is F1 to bring up online Help; so just
press F1.
Now once online Help is available type in Keyboard Shortcuts and hit the magnifier and
we get a list of links to help with keyboard shortcuts.
Now the very first item on the list when I did the search now was this one, Keyboard
shortcuts for Microsoft Word, Article Word 2013 Keyboard Shortcuts for U.S. keyboard
layout.
That looks like exactly the thing that we need.
Now in terms of using the keyboard shortcuts this particular item in Word, Help is really
the mainstay of the information that you’re going to need.
There’s a short discussion about finding and using keyboard shortcuts and then it takes
you into Office basics, navigating the Ribbon that we’re going to talk about in just a
moment, and then there is a quick reference for Word which takes you through all of the
keyboard shortcuts by task.
So if I choose a task from these, so something like Insert Special Characters which we looked
at earlier on in the course.
It gives a number of keyboard shortcuts for a number of special characters you might want
to insert.
So for instance, to insert the copyright symbol, it’s Alt-Control-C; the trademark symbol,
Alt-Control-T, and so on.
When you’ve looked in a particular category like Insert Special Characters, press the
minus to collapse it and maybe go to another category, Select text and graphics, press
the plus to expand it, select text by holding down Shift and using the arrow keys to move
the cursor.
So that’s the instruction for keyboard shortcut there.
Note, Shift and arrow keys are all you need to use.
But basically for each of the tasks it gives you the keyboard shortcuts that you’re likely
to need.
So that’s a great source of information for pretty much every keyboard shortcut you’re
likely to need within Word 2013.
I’m now going to close the Help and go back to Word itself with a document open and talk
about what are called key tips.
Now before the Ribbon came along, Microsoft Office in general and Word in particular had
a menu system and you would select a menu, a number of options would present themselves,
and against each of those, there would often be a keyboard shortcut.
You could type in the keyboard shortcut and you’d be able to execute whatever the command
was.
Now many commands that you can see in Word still have equivalent keyboard shortcuts but
some don’t.
So for instance, if you look at the Home tab here, if you look at the Paragraph Group in
the bottom right hand corner of the Paragraph Group, there’s a dialog box Launcher.
If I hover over it, the screen tip says Paragraph Settings.
No keyboard shortcut.
If I hover over the dialog box Launcher at the bottom right hand corner of the Font Group,
I get Font Control-D. So if I press Control-D on the keyboard now I will bring up the Font
dialog.
That’s really what keyboard shortcuts are all about.
But it’s a bit of a mixture as you’ve just seen and there is a system within Word
2013 and Office 2013 in general using the Ribbon of what are called key tips that can
really help you to find your way round the Ribbon.
Now the first thing you need to know is that if you’re looking at a Word document in
general, you want to use the Ribbon, press the Alt key.
You don’t need to hold it down, just press it once, and notice what happens.
You get a number of little symbols that appear on the top of various things.
There’s one each for the items on the Quick Access Toolbar numbered one, two, three, four,
and then there’s one each for the tabs on the Ribbon; so there’s F for file, H for
Home, N for Insert, G for Design, P for Page Layout, and so on.
And all you need to do is to type either one of those numbers for the Quick Access Toolbar,
one of those letters for the Ribbon and it will take you to the next step.
So let’s suppose I want to go to the View tab, I just hit the W on the keyboard.
Now when I’ve hit the W on the keyboard, it then gives me the equivalent for each command
on the View tab of the Ribbon.
It gives me a keyboard shortcut.
Well, it’s actually a key tip really.
So F if I want to go into Read Mode, P for Print Layout, L for Web Layout, and so on.
And there should be one of those for everything I may want to do.
Notice that some of them are grayed out.
You can’t necessarily do everything.
It’s the same obviously whether you’re using key tips or not.
There are always tends to be some commands you can’t execute at that time.
But that’s a great way of using the keyboard to find your way around Word 2013.
Now one very important point that I should mention here is that this isn’t only a matter
of personal preference.
I appreciate that some of you are restricted in some way and that you need to use the keyboard
because you may not be able to use a mouse or you may not be able to use a mouse well
enough to work accurately within a Word document.
So I don’t consider keyboard shortcuts always to be an option, sometimes it’s a necessity,
and I think the system of key tips in the use of the Ribbon in Word 2013 is a really
good system.
So you can follow that approach to pretty much execute any command you might need to
use when you’re using Word 2013.
And there’s one more step beyond this that I need to point out as well.
So by now if you’re aiming to use keyboard shortcuts or if you use them or have to use
them, you should be able to find your way around Word 2013 with quite a bit of confidence,
although you may need to look a few things up when you first use them.
Now one of the areas that’s a little bit tricky and something that people get stuck
on is how they access the status bar if they’re using keyboard shortcuts.
And there’s a little tricky way of doing that.
There is one of the function keys, the F6 key which basically takes you through the
panels and panes that are on the Word 2013 workspace.
Now you’re going to have to watch this slightly carefully but if I press the F6 key once,
it will select the Ribbon or the Information Bar on the right that we haven’t talked
about yet, but eventually and this may require me to press it two or three times, it will
select one of the items in the status bar.
So let me press it once, now let me press it again, and now you may just be able to
see that it’s selected section one in the status bar at the bottom.
You see that that’s slightly highlighted.
If I then use the arrow keys on the keyboard, so I’ve used F6 to get to here, now I use
the arrow keys, I can step through the options and if I choose one, suppose I choose that
Language option there, hit Enter, I can then use the keyboard to choose the Language.
In this case, English United States, press Enter to select that, and I have changed English
United States.
Again, if I wanted to change from Insert to Overtype Mode, press F6 to select the status
bar again, right arrow to Insert, press the Enter key, and it’s changed to Overtype.
So that’s the way that you can access the status bar and change options on the status
bar as well.
So that’s it on keyboard shortcuts and key tips for now.
There are one or two other things that will crop up a little bit later on in the course,
little extra things to mention.
But that should be enough for you to be going on with.
I’ll see you in the next section.