Sly Tips for Microsoft Word

Need to reposition a paragraph within a Word document? Try this alternative to cut and paste.

1. Place your mouse cursor within the paragraph to be moved.

2. Hold the Shift and Alt keys down and then use the Up or Down arrow keys to move the paragraph. The paragraph will move one line at a time.

3. This method lets you see the paragraph onscreen as it moves, while the cut/paste option removes the paragraph from view until you paste it into its new location.

Need to insert some random text for experimenting with font sizes and styles?

1. Type "=rand()" without quotes and press the Enter key. You will see a few paragraphs of text appear.

2. If you want a specific number of paragraphs and lines within each paragraph, use the format =rand(paras,lines) and press Enter. Typing = rand(5,5) should produce five paragraphs of five lines each, though I have noticed the resulting text does not always match the requested number of lines.

3. The actual text that appears may depend on your version of Word.

Need to sort a list of words?

1. Type each word on its own, individual line, pressing Enter after typing each word.

2. Click the Sort icon on the Home Ribbon in the Paragraph group, leave the default Paragraph option selected, and then click the OK button.

3. This will also also work with multi-line paragraphs, but you may get unexpected results. Try it after using the =rand() function mentioned above.

Need a quick way to alter the case of a word or phrase?

1. Click anywhere within a word, hold down the Shift key, repeatedly press the F3 key on the top row of your keyboard (laptop users may need to press and hold Shift+Fn+F3). The word will cycle between all lowercase, all uppercase, and first letter capitalized formats.

2. If you select several words, the same case changing cycle will apply to all selected words. This might be useful if the selected phrase is a title that needs the first letter of each word capitalized.

Additional Tips

1. Double-click a single word to select it.

2. With nothing selected in the document, hold the CTRL key and single click anywhere in a sentence to select the sentence.

3. Triple-click anywhere in a paragraph to select the entire paragraph.

4. Press Ctrl+Z to undo actions. Undo works in reverse order of changes you have made. For example, if you apply Bold, Underline, and Italics formatting to a word, repeatedly pressing Ctrl+Z will first remove Italics, then Underline, then Bold.

5. Ctrl+Y will redo the previous actions. In the example above, repeatedly pressing Ctrl+Y will redo Bold, Underline, and Italics.