Text Editing Universal Keyboard Shortcuts

After months of practicing, you have finally boosted your typing speed above that of a snail. You have finally got the hang of not looking at the keyboard for each character. You are no longer “hunting and pecking” to find the keys you need. Good, these are important steps in your journey towards becoming a computer master. However, there is much more to learn, and I am here to show you a way to speed up your typing efficiency by a huge margin.

 

One thing that slows people down while writing in any application is taking their hands off the keyboard and navigating around the screen with their mouse. There is a better way! There are lots of keyboard shortcuts designed to help you keep your hands on the keyboard and the words flowing. If you learn these shortcuts, you will be able to focus more on writing and less on navigating with your mouse.

 

Selecting Text

 

One of the most useful things you can do with text editing keyboard shortcuts is selecting bits of text. It speeds things along a great deal when writing.

 

 

Select one character at a time. – Shift+Left or Right Arrow

 

Select one line at a time. – Shift+Up or Down Arrow Keys

 

Select one word with each arrow press. – Shift+Ctrl+Left or Right Arrow

 

Select current paragraph. – Shift+Ctrl+Up or Down Arrow

 

Select text between the cursor and the end of the current line. – Shift+Hom

 

Select text between the cursor and the end of the current line. – Shift+End

 

Select all text. – Ctrl+A

 

Editing Text

 

Once you have all those text bits selected, you need to do something with them. That is where these handy editing bits come into play.

 

 

Copy selected text. – Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Insert

 

Cut selected text. – Ctrl+X or Shift+Delete

 

Paste text at the cursor. – Ctrl+V or Shift+Insert

 

Undo last action. – Ctrl+Z

 

Redo last action. – Ctrl+Y

 

Formatting Text

 

Another useful thing you can do with keyboard shortcuts is format your text. You can make it italicized, bold and more with just a couple of buttons on the keyboard.

 



 

Make text bold. – Ctrl+B

 

Make text italicized. – Ctrl+I

 

Underline selected text. – Ctrl+U

 

Moving the Cursor

 

You can move your cursor all around your text document without ever placing your hands on the mouse. This allows you to keep your hands on the keyboard and the productivity flowing.

 



 

Move to beginning of current line. – Home

 

Move to end of current line. – End

 

Move to top of text entry field. – Ctrl+Home

 

Move to bottom of the text entry field. – Ctrl+End

 

Move up one frame. – Page Up

 

Move down one frame. – Page Down

 

Move to beginning of paragraph. – Ctrl+Up Arrow

 

Move to end of paragraph. – Ctrl+Down Arrow

 

Working With Whole Words

 

Deleting text one letter at a time is not the quickest way to do the job. If you need to delete and mess with full words, these keyboard shortcuts are just what you need.

 



 

Move to start of previous word. – Ctrl+Left Arrow

 

Move to start of next word. – Ctrl+Right Arrow

 

Delete previous word. – Ctrl+Backspace

 

Delete next word – Ctrl+Delete

 

Conclusion

 

With these keyboard shortcuts, you will be able to increase your writing efficiency substantially. Think of all the time you will save not switching over from your keyboard to your mouse constantly.

 

For Mac users, most of these shortcuts will work if you just swap CTRL with Command (Cmd).

 

Are there any text editing keyboard shortcuts we missed? Let us know in the comments!

 

Credits: Makeuseof