Page 600 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

UP TO SPEED TEXT-SELECTION BIBLE

Before doing almost anything to text in a word processor, like

making it bold, changing its typeface, or moving it to a new
spot in your document, you have to highlight the text you want
to affect. For millions of people, this entails dragging the

cursor extremely carefully, perfectly horizontally, across the
desired text. And if they want to capture an entire paragraph or
section, they click at the beginning, drag diagonally, and

release the mouse button when they reach the end of the
passage.

There’s a better way. Selecting text is the cornerstone of every

editing operation in a word processor or page-layout program,
so it pays off to learn some faster and more precise ways of
going about it.

For example, double-clicking a word highlights it, instantly
and neatly. In fact, by keeping the mouse button pressed on the
second click, you can drag horizontally to highlight text in

crisp one-word chunks—a great way to select text faster and
more precisely. These tricks work anywhere you can type.

In most programs, including Microsoft’s, additional shortcuts

await. For example, triple-clicking anywhere within a
paragraph highlights the entire paragraph. (Once again, if you
keep the button pressed at the end of this maneuver, you can

then drag to highlight your document in one-paragraph
increments.)

In many programs, including Word and WordPad, you can

highlight exactly one sentence by clicking within it while
pressing Ctrl. If you need to highlight a large blob of text—
even one that’s too big to fit on the current screen—start by

clicking to position the insertion-point cursor at the beginning
of the text you want to capture. Now scroll, if necessary, so the