Basic Text Editing In Microsoft Word 2010

Highlight Words, Sentences, Paragraphs Or Text - Know The Editing Basics

In this section I will be explaining and exampling the basics of Text Editing so that you know how to highlight text, copy text, center text, change the colour of text and so on. Although you may want to delve right into creating a C.V or Report, be patient and learn the basics first.

I have taught people Microsoft Office 2003 in the past whereby they know how to insert a picture and write some text but are useless at saving files into a folder other than the DOCUMENTS folder. I have also taught people who do accounting with Microsoft Excel for a living but do not have a clue about using Tables in Microsoft Word. So learn the basics first if you want a better job for example.

For this example begin by opening a new microsoft word document (blank page) and then type yourself a couple of short paragraphs. It does not matter what each paragraph contains because you will only be using them for text editing purposes. The first example will show how to highlight some text.

Fig 1.0  Type a couple of paragraphs into a new word document and then.....

With your two paragraphs written and the flashing Text Cursor positioned underneath the second paragraph, ready for the third paragraph to be typed (as seen in Fig 1.0 above), the next thing to do is position that flashing text cursor to the left of the first item you want highlighting. This could be to the left of a letter, word, sentence or paragraph for example.

Position  The  Flashing  Text  Cursor

Positioning is done by first hovering the Text Editor mouse pointer over the first letter of the item you want highlighting. In this example, over the letter D of the word Dear.

Fig 1.1  .....place the Text Editor mouse pointer over the first letter of the item you want highlighting.

Once the Text Editor mouse pointer is hovering over the first letter, of the item you want highlighting (Fig 1.1 above), click on the Left Mouse Button so that the flashing Text Cursor is then positioned (moved) to the left of that item. In this example, to the left of the letter D. At this point DO NOT MOVE THE TEXT EDITOR MOUSE POINTER - Keep it hovered over the first letter.

Fig 1.2  The flashing Text Cursor has now been positioned to the left of the letter D

The next step to highlighting text is to drag (move) the Text Editor mouse pointer (the mouse) over the item (i.e. word or sentence) you want highlighting - This is really classed as the first step to highlighting text because the above step was only needed for the re-positioning of the flashing Text Cursor .

The  Mouse  Drag  Method

Begin highlighting text by first clicking the left mouse button on the exact spot where you left the Text Editor mouse pointer (i.e. over the letter D) and KEEP THE LEFT MOUSE BUTTON HELD DOWN ON THAT SPOT. So in this example, keep the left mouse button clicked (held down) whilst the Text Editor mouse pointer is either to the left of the letter D or slightly over the letter D.

Now start moving (dragging) the Text Editor mouse pointer to the right, over one letter at a time, with the left mouse button still held down (pressed). As you do this each letter of Dear will become highlighted and the flashing Text Cursor will have temporarily disappeared. The Text Editor mouse pointer will still be showing though.

Fig 1.3  Hightlight text by moving (dragging) the Text Editor mouse pointer over it

Do not worry if you moved the Text Editor mouse pointer before attempting the drag method because if that was the case you would simply hover the Text Editor mouse pointer over the first letter again and then attempt the drag method. I say attempt because as a beginner you might not get the hang of dragging first time around, hence why this lesson exists.

With the text now hightlighted simply release the left mouse button to keep the text highlighted but at the same time to free-up the left mouse button; so it can be used for something else, like COPY the text into memory.

It is not necessary to poisition the flashing Text Cursor before carrying out a drag method simply because the actual left mouse button click, prior to the drag method, automatically poisitions the flashing Text Cursor anyway. The reason I exampled positioning in this way was because it is one of those things you need to get into the habit of doing if you want to be able to edit documents quickly in the future. This next example shows a slower but more accurate way of highlighting text.

The  Cursor  Keys  Drag  Method

If you are not comfortable highlighting text using the mouse pointer drag method you might like to try the Cursor Keys drag method. It is a lot more accurate/precise and does not involve the Text Editor mouse pointer .

Begin by positioning the flashing Text Cursor to the left of the item you want highlighting (as shown in Figures 1.1 and 1.2 above). In this example, to the left of the letter D. Or to the left of the word Dear, or to the left of the wording Dear Maud, if you want to look at it that way. Either way though; the next thing to do is press the SHIFT keyboard key down and keep it pressed (held) down while you then press down and release the RIGHT Cursor (RIGHT Arrow) keyboard key for each letter you want highlighting.

So to clarify. Keep the SHIFT keyboard key pressed (held) down at all times while you then press down and let go of the RIGHT Cursor (RIGHT Arrow) keyboard key. In this example, in order to highlight the word Dear I will keep the SHIFT keyboard key held down while I then press and release the RIGHT Cursor keyboard key four times. Once the word Dear has been highlighted I will then let go of all the keyboard keys.

Fig 1.4  To hightlight text - Hold down the SHIFT key whilst pressing and releasing the RIGHT Cursor key

As you can see in the above example; I have purposely moved the Text Editor mouse pointer out of the way in order to show you that it is independant of the Cursor Keys drag method.

You may of picked up on me saying cursor keyS. This is because you can use the other three cursor keys too. For example, pressing and releasing the LEFT Cursor keyboard key will deselect a letter. So if I had the word Dear highlighted, with the SHIFT keyboard key still held down, and then used the LEFT Cursor keyboard key it would deselect the letter r. And if I then used the DOWN Cursor keyboard key six times it would highlight the whole two paragraphs.

Likewise, if I then used the UP Cursor keyboard key six times I would be back to having Dea highlighted. Remember r was deselected with the LEFT Cursor keyboard key.

Fig 1.5  Starting from the letter D, use the DOWN Cursor key six times to highlight all of the text

The above, highlight all text, process can be acheived with the mouse pointer drag method too. All you would need to do is start from your first letter and then drag (move) the Text Editor mouse pointer downwards. You might also have to drag it rightwards though if the whole text has not been highlighted, for whatever reason(s).

Unhighlighted sections of text are normally caused by pieces of text that have been imported, or pasted, into a document whereby that text contains foreign/formatted characteristics such as line breaks. Ignore these technical details for now though!

Selecting  All  Text  Within  A  Document

If you want to select all of the text within a document you can use the above Mouse Drag method (or Cursor Keys method) by position the Text Editor mouse pointer (or Text Cursor) to the left of the first letter in the document and then drag the text editor mouse pointer (or press the cursor keys) until all of the text has been highlighted. However, there is a simpler method using/performing the Select ALL task.

The  CTRL  +  A  Method

You can press the CTRL keyboard key down, and keeep it held down, while you then press down the A keyboard key. This will highlight all of the text within the document, regardless of where the Text Editor mouse pointer and Text Cursor are at the time you perform this Select ALL task. When all of the text is highlighted, which only takes a blink of a second, simply release both the CTRL and A keyboard keys.

Fig 1.6  Highlight all of the text within a document by pressing the CTRL and A keyboard keys down

The  SELECT  ALL  Method

You can also perform this Select ALL task by clicking on the SELECT drop-down menu, located on the HOME Tab (window), and then select the SELECT ALL menu-item. This will do exactly the same Select All task as pressing down the CTRL and A keyboards keys.

Fig 1.7  Highlight all of the text within a document by clicking on the SELECT ALL menu-item

Highlight  One  Word  Only

To quickly highlight one word only; Position the Text Editor mouse pointer over the word you want highlighting and then double click the left mouse button whilst over that word. So for this next example I positioned the Text Editor mouse pointer over the word stamp and then double clicked the left mouse button whilst the Text Editor mouse pointer was over the word stamp.

Fig 1.8  Position the Text Editor mouse pointer over a word and then double click the left mouse button

The double click will make the Text Editor mouse pointer disappear and then highlight the word.

Highlight  One  Sentence  Only

To quickly highlight one sentence only; Position the Text Cursor to left of the sentence you want highlighting, then press down and keep pressed down the CTRL keyboard key while you then click the left mouse button once over any part of that sentence. So for this example I positioned the Text Cursor to the left of the I'm fine... sentence and then clicked the left mouse button once whilst over the word some.

Fig 1.9  Position the Text Cursor to the left of the sentence, hold down CTRL and click once

What the above said means is; You must position the Text Cursor to left of the sentence you want highlighting, to the left of the letter I in this case, but the mouse pointer does not have to be over any specific part of the sentence when you click once. The mouse pointer must be over the sentence (blue highlight) though when you do click once.

Highlight  One  Paragraph  Only

To quickly highlight one paragraph only; Position the Text Editor mouse pointer over any part of the paragraph you want highlighting and then click the left mouse button three times, quite fast, on the same spot.

Fig 1.10  Position the Text Editor mouse pointer over a paragraph and then left click three times

In the above example I positioned the Text Editor mouse pointer over the first paragraph and then clicked the left mouse button three times, quite fast, on the same spot.

Highlight  One  Line  Only

To quickly highlight one line only; Position the standard mouse pointer on the left-side, margin area, of the line you want highlighting and then click the left mouse button once. So to highlight the second line of the first paragraph, in this next example, I would position the standard mouse pointer to the left of that line, inside its white margin area, and then click the left mouse button once.

Fig 1.11  Click on the left-side, margin area, of the line you want highlighting

The left click will make the Text Cursor disappear and then highlight the line. This is normal because WORD assumes you will then go on to do something with that highlighted line of text, such as copy it or delete it. This applies throughout the highlighting methods mentioned above. Meaning, the Text Editor mouse pointer and/or Text Cursor may disappear and even reappear from time to time depending on what highlighting method you are using.

What  Next?

So now you have some text highlighted, in blue, what can you do with it? Answer. Many things, including - 1) Copying it into memory so that you can then paste it elsewhere. 2) Delete it. Or 3) Format it (restyle the highlight so that the text is Blue, Bold, Italic and Large for example). These kind of things will be exampled over the coming sections.