Thank you for that tip. I had read that method many years ago and forgotten it. It is something I will use from time to time instead of doing it the ‘hard way’.

When i try this it opens the Research Window and looks up the word I am pointing at. Am I not holding my “mouth” right? :-)

I normally have been skipping your articles since you are going so heavy into Vista, but I did like the vertical MS Word selection tip.

Is this only certain versions of word? I tried in Word 2002 and holding alt down did absolutely nothing

I tried this in Word 2007 and working perfect but could not manage to have the first words selected. Maybe due to my usage of laptop mouse pad.

By the way, I tried to find a way to reach Diana and the Lockergnome team to have their permission to translate this tip into Turkish (no email and contact forms found unfortunately). The translation is accessible at http://www.internet.com.tr/atschikura/6181 and credits were given at the end of the translation.

Please let me know if you think I break the copyright clauses of Lockergnome.

Great tip! I very often work with lists of people that I want to import into a database after a seminar or conference, and a lot of the time it’s an unformatted mess that would otherwise need to be cut and pasted.

[…] Vertical text selection is just easy. To select the girls’ names on the above list, you need to hold down the Alt key on your keyboard. Holding the Alt key while dragging the mouse pointer to select the text will allow you to select vertically. […]

[…] OMG. This is life changing. If you hold down ALT in Microsoft Word, you can vertically select text. WTH! I didn’t know that!!! WOW! [via] […]

[…] Here is how to select vertical text. Pretty simple actually… if you read the Microsoft Office manual well enough. “To make a vertical selection, hold down the ALT key as you drag the mouse pointer to select the text. If you want to select the first word on each line, hold down the ALT key and drag the mouse pointer up or down to highlight each word.” […]

To achieve the same thing via the cursor keys instead of mouse:
CTRL+SHIFT+F8 “Extend a selection or block (then press an arrow key).”

It may surprise some people to know but that feature has been in since at least Word for DOS 5.5 days.

I did not know word could do that.
The last time I saw that feature was in an old DOS work processor called Sprint.

WOW Thanks

Any more stuff like that!

[…] Vertical Text Selection In Word ~ Windows Fanatics To make a vertical column selection, hold down the ALT key as you drag the mouse pointer to select the text. (tags: word tip column vertical) […]