Sunday, January 4, 2009

Select Text With The Mouse In Word 2007

By Dwight Davidson

Before you can edit or format a block of text in Microsoft Word 2007, you need to select it. Selecting the text is a way of telling Word that you want to work with a certain piece of text. (Selecting is also referred to as Highlighting.)

The most straightforward way of highlighting text is to position the cursor where you want to start highlighting, click and hold the mouse button down and drag to the position where you want the highlight to end. It is not essential to drag across every single line that you want to highlight. It's sufficient to move the mouse in a straight line from the start to the finish. To deselect your text and get rid of the highlight, click anywhere in the text. The blinking cursor will then reappear.

Select All

Another simple way of highlighting text is to select the entire document. This is done with the Select All command. In Microsoft Word 2007 the Select All command is found in the Editing group of the Home Tab of the Ribbon. Click to obtain the drop-down menu; click on Select and then choose Select All. The Select All command is found in lots of programs and lots of environments. It can also be accessed via the keyboard using Control-a: that is to say, hold down the Control key while typing the letter "a".

Selecting all of your text

As well as highlighting characters by dragging across them, Word also allows you to select lines of text. To do this, position the cursor in the left margin and you'll notice that the cursor changes to an arrow pointing to the right. Once the cursor has changed, you can simply click to select a single line or click, hold down the mouse button and drag to select several lines.

Using the Select All command

Another simple way of highlighting text is to select the entire document. This is done with the Select All command. In Microsoft Word 2007 the Select All command is found in the Editing group of the Home Tab of the Ribbon. Click to obtain the drop-down menu; click on Select and then choose Select All. The Select All command is found in lots of programs and lots of environments. It can also be accessed via the keyboard using Control-a: that is to say, hold down the Control key while typing the letter "a". - 15485

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