Jump Start: The 10 Office Shortcuts You Must Know

Transcript of the Video Tutorial

Welcome to “Keyboard Shortcuts” the Microsoft office tricks that EVERYONE should know.

This is Les McCarter from Power Up! Training and I am focusing on productivity tips that all Office users must know.

First off, there are 100’s of internet websites that provide unending rows of shortcuts, that you will never be able to memorize and rarely need to use.

Here at Power Up Training, we provide practical tips by focusing on the top 10 keyboard most useful shortcuts plus a few bonus strategies for keyboard navigation and text selection.

Here is a preview of what we will be showing and you can compare what you already know with what I will be teaching you.

All in under 10 minutes.

Do note that while we will be showing these tricks in PowerPoint, the commands are good in all Microsoft Office products going back to the very to the beginning and up to the latest versions of Office 365.

And they have now become standard and will work in other software programs.

Let’s set the foundation by talking about your keyboard.  Most of the shortcuts will be composed of COMBO KEYSTROKES.  This is where you hold down one key and then press a second key in combination. For our practical tips, the combo key will almost always start with the CTRL key, there are some that will use the SHIFT Key.

On almost all keyboards, there is a matching set of the CTRL and SHIFT key on both sides of the keyboard.  It does not matter which one you elect to use.

Other shortcuts utilize the top row of keys that are called FUNCTION KEYS.  Each software may use this differently, but Microsoft Office tools have a few standardized shortcuts that we will cover.  This top row of function keys go from F1 through F12 and requires just a single tap but they too may work in combination, such as the SHIFT F7 key for launching the thesaurus.  More on that later.

Lastly, most modern keyboards have recruited the FUNCTION KEYS into double duty. Doing one type of command when pressed, like muting your sound, and another command when holding down the FN key as a combo.  Typically the small-sized indicator, in this case the Function keys require the use of the FN key.

Ok, let’s go Power Up on our shortcut keys.

The first five are centered around editing.

COPY will put what is highlighted in the clipboard for future use.

PASTE will drop the contents of the clipboard into our current cursor location.

And CUT will delete what is highlighted putting it into the clipboard

We will also see the editing tools of SPELL CHECK and Synonym finder.

SO let’s go do it!

I will drop out of our PowerPoint Slide Show viewer mode into PowerPoint slide working view.

First up: COPY.  I am highlighting item 1 with my mouse and I will then use the keyboard to hold down the CTRL key and then while holding the key down also tap the letter C key to copy.

Now that line 1 is in the clipboard and still on our slide.

Let’s drop the clipboard contents with the PASTE command by moving to a new spot, and clicking, and then PASTE with CTRL + V.

Now let’s contrast this with the CUT Command.  CUT will REMOVE what is highlighted and put it into the CLIPBOARD and then we can use the same PASTE Command to relocate the contents.  Let’s try it.

I have line 3 highlighted and I will use the CUT Command with the letter X with the CTRL key pressed first.

Now instead of a copy of the text, the CUT command removed what was highlighted and put it into the clipboard.

Next, I will move to a new location and use the PASTE of CTRL plus V and put the clipboard contents at the new spot, effectively moving the text from one location to the next.

How to remember these?

C for Copy is easy!

For Paste, think of the V as the proofreading symbol for inserting a mark here.

And for CUT, think of the X as a giant REMOVE X mark.

Let’s hit the next two quickly as the F7 function key will launch the SPELL CHECK tool for whichever Microsoft program you are running.

Let me introduce a spelling error and then run F7 for spell checker and see the corrected word.

For the Thesaurus tool, you should first select the word you want suggestions for and then hold down the SHIFT key and press F7.  The tool will pop up on the right.

we will search for an alternative to CHANGE

Now let go to FORMATTING SHORTCUTS.

The first three are quick and easy for BOLD and ITALIC and UNDERLINE.

And then I will demonstrate the ever so useful REMOVE FORMATTING command.

So use your mouse to select the text you want to format.  Here we will highlight CTRL +B and then I will hold down the CTRL key and press the letter B to bold it.

And now the same for CTRL I for italic

and CTRL +U for underline.

Note that these are TOGGLE commands meaning that if you repeat the command it will turn the formatting off or back on.

The last formatting command is really “unformatting command.” Meaning it remove any text formatting and return the text to the original standard look.

Let change what the text selected to be blue and have a yellow formatting.

To return the text back to my standard black, I just highlight and press CTRL – SPACEBAR.

Now for my MOST USED SHORTCUT: UNDO.

The Undo command will let you travel back in time by undoing the previous action.  And you can go back multiple commands in a row.

This has saved me many times over . . . almost daily!

The not quite opposite shortcut is the REDO, which will repeat the last command.  This is more of a productivity trick.

Let’s see these in action.

The REDO CTRL Y command works differently . . .if you just did multiple UNDOs it will reverse them and put them back in place.

See how my REDO command issued twice brings back the RED FONT and then next the YELLOW highlighting.

Now let’s use the REDO differently to repeat the last issued command, not just redoing the undo.

For our demo, I will change the word blue to BLUE font color and then move to the word in STEP 7. With the word redo highligted and I going to issue the CTRL Y command to redo the last command of changing the word to blue.

This redoing the last command works on almost any single command, like the backspace DELETE command.

I delete once and then issue the CTRL Y REDO command to repeat and repeat and repeat.

Ok, let’s change gears and learn keyboard shortcuts to navigate our lines of text.

Home to the start of the line.

End to the end of the line.

The CTRL+HOME will take us to the start of the text.  The Start of the text will vary based on where we are at.  In this case, it is this text placeholder

Now, look at quick navigation with the keyboard.

CTRL plus a left or right arrow key will move us one word at a time.

And CTRL plus the UP or DOWN arrow key will move us up or down by paragraph.

With these techniques, we can easily incorporate group text selection shortcuts.  The trick is to hold down the shift key and then incorporate our keyboard navigation techniques we just learned.

The last text selection shortcut is SELECT ALL TEXT.  CTRL + A (for all) will select all the text in the text box or document.

CTRL-A is one of my favorites to select everything to make a global change.

So that’s it. All the shortcuts you must know to use Microsoft Office.  This handy cheat sheet PDF is available at our website of Power-UP.Training.  See the link below in the comments.

If you have questions or requests for new free video training topics, leave them in the comments below.

Please like and subscribe to our YouTube channel as it helps us build our community and continue to make free training videos for you.

Until then, go Power UP!