Accurately highlight text in Word - here's how!
Anyone who uses Windows 11 Home at home or Windows 11 Enterprise at work and works with Microsoft Word 2021 or Microsoft 365 will want and need to use this function from time to time: Marking text passages in Word. There can be many different reasons for this, but it often leads to problems, especially with longer texts – if you don’t know our little tricks, which we explain here.
Reasons why you have to mark text passages in Word
Sometimes you have to mark a word, a sentence or a single paragraph in a Microsoft Word text document, sometimes even entire passages, which can often extend over several pages. This may be necessary, for example, if you want to copy a paragraph in the text or delete it completely. Even if you want to display certain passages in the document in a different font or colour, if you want to set a sentence in bold or italics, you have to mark the corresponding place in Microsoft Word. If you want to format a text, it is sometimes necessary to underline certain passages in colour, set up indents or add text characters or bulleted lists to individual paragraphs. For all this, the desired part of the text must be marked in Word.
Marking areas in Word – these methods are available
There are various approaches to formatting a text or marking it in Microsoft Word, which we would like to examine in more detail here.
- Mark text passages in Word with the left mouse button: This is probably the most common method used by many users. Simply place the cursor at the beginning of the passage to be marked and then, while holding down the left mouse button, drag it to where you want the mark to end.
- Double-click and triple-click: If you click twice quickly on a word with the mouse, it is automatically marked. A quick triple-click marks the clicked paragraph.
- Key combination „Ctrl+A“: If you want to save yourself the trouble of using the mouse, simply select this key combination to mark the entire text in Word.
- Use key combinations to mark individual letters: If you only want to mark individual letters or characters, these key combinations can be used by holding down the „Shift“ key:
- Right arrow marks the next character
- Left arrow marks the previous character
- Arrow up marks the line above
- Arrow down marks the line below
- Use the key combination to mark entire text sections: Slightly more than single characters marks the key combination „Shift+Ctrl“ together with:
- Right arrow to mark the next word or the current word from the cursor position to the end
- Left arrow marks the previous word or the current word from the cursor position to the beginning
- Up arrow sets a text marker to the beginning of the paragraph
- Down arrow marks the current paragraph to its end
- Marking with the F8 key: If you want to mark individual parts of text from a paragraph in Microsoft Word – whether in the 2016 Multilanguage full version or the 2019 Multilanguage full version – placing the cursor precisely in the right place can quickly go wrong. However, if you place it at the text position from which you want to mark and then press the F8 key, it becomes really convenient. Then all you have to do is move the cursor to the place where you want the selection to end – and exactly this section in between is selected. If you have perhaps not hit the exact spot with the cursor, that is no problem either. The end point can be placed in a different position at any time using the F8 method.
- If the F8 key is pressed twice in succession while the cursor is stationary, the word on which the cursor is currently resting is marked – similar to a double mouse click. Pressing the key three times highlights the current paragraph, and pressing the „magic key“ five times highlights the entire text in the Microsoft Word document from Microsoft Office 2021 or Microsoft 365.
If you press the key once or twice too often, you can return to the previous selection with the combination „Shift+F8“. The Esc key ends the marking mode.
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