Vertical Text Selection In Word
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Here is a nifty tip for selecting text in Word that many people don’t know about. Normally when you select text in Word, you do so horizontally, from right to left or left to right. However, what do you do if the text you need to select is vertical; for example, what if you want to bold the first word on each line? You can select and bold each word individually or you can make a vertical selection.
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.
When you’re using this tip, remember that you can make a vertical selection anywhere in your document.
[tags]vertical text selection, word, office[/tags]

14 Comments
Jisp
March 15th, 2007
at 2:41am
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’.
RamseyLE
March 15th, 2007
at 10:03am
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?
Roy Merritt
March 15th, 2007
at 11:32am
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.
Sean
March 15th, 2007
at 8:02pm
Is this only certain versions of word? I tried in Word 2002 and holding alt down did absolutely nothing
Atschikura
March 16th, 2007
at 2:51am
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.
Richard Grant
March 16th, 2007
at 3:45am
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.
Study Skills Blog » Blog Archive » Select And Copy Vertical Text With Ease
March 16th, 2007
at 9:44am
[...] 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. [...]
…then the smartest thing to say is nothing « Doobybrain.com
March 16th, 2007
at 8:11pm
[...] 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] [...]
» How to Select Vertical Text in Microsoft Word
March 17th, 2007
at 7:10pm
[...] 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.†[...]
Tom Cotton
March 22nd, 2007
at 8:11pm
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.
Rick Hahn
August 31st, 2007
at 4:56pm
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!
links for 2007-09-03
September 3rd, 2007
at 4:18pm
[...] 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) [...]
Uttam Kumar
October 22nd, 2008
at 5:00am
According ot me if a person can think then after the prepairing he can do.
Every thing is possible for me
Thanks & Best regards,
Uttam Kumar
Robert
October 29th, 2008
at 9:15am
Here is a situation I hope you can solve for me:
In Word, when selecting text from page 1 to page 4, the scroll speed is too fast to accurately/sanely select the text that you want. The process doesn’t involve the use of the scroll wheel, sidebar, or the arrow keys. Instead, I am moving my mouse cursor over the bottom of the page’s border.
Here is my question:
Is there anyway to slow down the speed by which the page scrolls while selecting text with only the movement of your mouse?