Improve Your Word Processing Efficiency With Keyboard Shortcuts Part II

In part I of Improve your Work Processing Efficiency with Keyboard Shortcuts, I introduced you to some of the common keyboard shortcuts for working in Word. As you become more experienced, you may want to try your hand at creating your own custom shortcuts. By doing so, you can choose the specific key combination that you want to use to perform a specific action.

To create your own keyboard shortcuts in Word, you must first click Customize from the Tools menu. You should see a button called Keyboards at the bottom of the dialog box. Click this button to bring up the Customize Keyboard dialog box. Once you have decided which command you want to make a shortcut for, highlight it from the list of Commands. If necessary, select a different category to locate the command you are looking for. Then, within the Press new shortcut key, enter in the keystrokes you want to press to use the command and click Assign.

The one problem with using shortcut keys is that you need to remember the keystrokes that you have assigned to the various tasks. To make it easier in the beginning, you may want to print a list of shortcut keys for reference.

To print a list of your assigned shortcuts keys in Word:

1. Within Word, click Print from the File menu. If you are using Word 2007, click the Microsoft Office button and then click Print. The Print dialog box will appear.
2. Select the Key assignments option from the Using the Print What drop-down list.
   Click OK.