Highlighting text in Microsoft Word
Before you can edit or format your text, you need to highlight it. Highlighting your text is a way of telling Microsoft Word 2007 that you want to work with a certain piece of text. (Highlighting is also referred to as selecting.)
The simplest way of highlighting text is to position the cursor where you want to start highlighting, click and hold the mouse button down and drag to the position where you want to end the highlight. It is not essential to drag across every single line that you want to highlight. It is sufficient to go in a straight line from the start to the finish.
To deselect your text and remove the highlight, click anywhere in your text. The flashing cursor will then reappear.
Another simple way of highlighting text is to select the entire document. This is done with the “Select All” command. In Microsoft Word 2007, the “Select All” command is found in the “Editing” group of the “Home” Tab. Click to obtain the drop-down menu; click on the “Select” menu; choose “Select All”.
The “Select All” command is found in lots of programs and lots of environments. It can also be accessed via the keyboard using Control-A: that is to say, hold and the Control key while typing “A”.
As well as highlighting characters by dragging across them Word also allows you to select whole lines. To do this position the cursor on the margin and you’ll notice that the cursor changes to an arrow pointing to the right. Once the cursor has changed, you can simply click to select a single line or click and drag to select several lines.
Another way of highlighting text is to click multiple times. To highlight a word, double click on the word; to highlight an entire paragraph, click three times on the paragraph.
It is also possible to select text using the keyboard. Most of these options involve using the Shift key. One such technique is click followed by Shift-click. First, click to mark the start of the area that needs to be highlighted; next hold down the Shift key and click to mark the point where you want the highlighting to end. All the text between the two clicks will then be highlighted.
To select text without the mouse, use the cursor keys on your keyboard to position the cursor where you want your highlight. Next, press the Shift key in conjunction with one of the cursor keys. To highlight character by character, press the right or left arrow depending on the direction that you want to move. To select line by line pressed the down arrow or up arrow.
The shift key can also be used in conjunction with the Control key. For example, if you hold down Control and Shift and press the right arrow, you will select word by word instead of character by character. Similarly, if you hold down Control and Shift and press the down arrow, you will select paragraph by paragraph.
The Home and End keys can also be used in this context. For example, if the cursor is positioned in the middle of a line, pressing Shift and Home will select from that position to the start of the line while pressing shift and End will select from the cursor position to the end of the line. Holding down Control and Shift and pressing the right arrow will select from the cursor position to the start of the document. Control and Shift and End will select from the cursor position to the end of the document.
The author is a trainer and developer with Macresource Computer Solutions, an independent computer training company offering Microsoft Word 2007 training in London and throughout the UK.
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