• Contact
  • Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Sign Up for Deals

    • Login
Book Cave: Authors and Publisher promotional services and features
Book Cave
Authors & Publishers
Connecting the RIGHT readers with the RIGHT books
  • About
    • Book Cave Reviews
    • Who We Are
      • Mission
      • In the Works
      • Book Cave Logos
      • Meet the Ratings
    • Privacy Center
      • Privacy & Terms
      • Your Privacy Rights
    • Affiliate Program Agreement
    • Trademarks
  • Current Deals
    • Deals from Retailers
    • Book Cave Direct Deals
      • Exclusive Ebook Downloads
      • Free Group Deals
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Readers
    • Sign Up
    • Rated Books Database
    • Rate a book I’ve read
    • Browse Author Pages
    • Reader FAQ
    • Reader Blog
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Authors
    • How It Works
    • Our Services
      • Feature Your Book
      • Group Features
      • Subscriber Magnet Services
      • MBR Ratings
      • Create an Author Page
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Pricing
    • Submit a Book
    • Create Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Author Resources
      • Author Blog
      • Author FAQ
      • Promotion Tips
      • Cover Guide Calculator
  • Book Swag
  • Contact
  • Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Sign Up for Deals

    • Login
  • About
    • Book Cave Reviews
    • Who We Are
      • Mission
      • In the Works
      • Book Cave Logos
      • Meet the Ratings
    • Privacy Center
      • Privacy & Terms
      • Your Privacy Rights
    • Affiliate Program Agreement
    • Trademarks
  • Current Deals
    • Deals from Retailers
    • Book Cave Direct Deals
      • Exclusive Ebook Downloads
      • Free Group Deals
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Readers
    • Sign Up
    • Rated Books Database
    • Rate a book I’ve read
    • Browse Author Pages
    • Reader FAQ
    • Reader Blog
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Authors
    • How It Works
    • Our Services
      • Feature Your Book
      • Group Features
      • Subscriber Magnet Services
      • MBR Ratings
      • Create an Author Page
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Pricing
    • Submit a Book
    • Create Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Author Resources
      • Author Blog
      • Author FAQ
      • Promotion Tips
      • Cover Guide Calculator
  • Book Swag
Technical Tips,Writing for Authors
05 May 2020 at 11:29 AM PDT
Updated 2 years ago

11 Useful Microsoft Word Shortcuts for Authors

By Catia Shattuck

Advertisement

JutohWe at Book Cave prefer Jutoh for ebook creation because it gives us more control than most other ebook software out there, while still maintaining a friendly interface.

Browse by topic

All Posts Author Pages Author Website Cover Design Ebook Formatting Grammar & Punctuation Mailing Lists Promotion & Marketing Publishing Tips Social Media Technical Tips Tutorials Writing for Authors

useful microsoft word shortcuts

I'm a book wyrm
We hope you enjoy reading this post!
If you’re like us and love to read, then click here to score tons of free and discounted ebooks.

As an author, you probably spend a lot of time in Microsoft Word (or a similar program). Here are 11 useful Microsoft Word shortcuts that will make your writing life just a little bit easier!

1. Insert Page Break

PC: ctrl + enter
Mac: cmd + enter

This is very useful for inserting those pages breaks between chapters. And of course, never use multiple paragraph returns instead of a page break. Be kind to your formatter, who will have to take those all out.

2. Repeat Most Recent Command

PC: F4 OR ctrl + y
Mac: cmd + y

This one is useful if you’re doing something over and over again, like inserting a table, inserting a symbol or accented letter, and so on. If you find yourself doing something multiple times in a file, try to bulk it together and do it one after another with this shortcut.

3. Center Text

PC: ctrl + e
Mac: cmd + e

You probably center your chapter titles and scene break stars. With this shortcut, you can do it quicker (and please, don’t use tabs to “center” text!).

4. Left Align Text

PC: ctrl + l
Mac: cmd + l

If you need to change the alignment of the text to left-align, this shortcut is one you’ll also want to know.

5. Save the Document

PC: ctrl + s
Mac: cmd + s

If you’re not using this handing shortcut, you should. Losing your progress because your program or your computer crashes is never fun, but you can easily and often save your file with this shortcut after every writing pause and avoid a lot of frustration.

6. Open the Thesaurus

PC: shift + F7
Mac: shift + Fn + F7

Maybe you don’t quite have the word you want to use and you want to look up alternatives in a thesaurus. Word has a built-in thesaurus you can try, and you can access it quickly with this shortcut.

7. Move to the Beginning of the Next Paragraph

PC: ctrl + up/down arrow
Mac: cmd + up/down arrow

This shortcut can help you move faster through your document, like when you’re editing it or scanning for a specific spot.

8. Turn Track Changes On or Off

PC: ctrl + shift + e
Mac: cmd + shift + e

If you’re editing your or someone else’s manuscript, this handy shortcut will allow you to toggle Track Changes on and off, saving you a bit of time. This is especially useful if you are helping someone clean up their formatting, and they don’t need to approve those changes.

9. Insert a Comment

PC: ctrl + option + a
Mac: cmd + option + a

In that same vein, you can easily insert a comment into a document with this shortcut.

10. Create a Bulleted List

PC: ctrl + shift + l
Mac: cmd + shift + l

This will change the paragraph your cursor is in into a bulleted list item.

11. Switch Between Programs:

PC: alt + tab (alt + shift + tab to go the other way)
Mac: cmd + tab (cmd + shift + tab to go the other way)

This isn’t a Word-specific shortcut, but it’s very useful when you have a few programs open that you need to frequently switch between, such as your Word document, a browser window with some research information, an Excel sheet with data, and so on.

Word has a lot of other great features that are helpful to authors, such as the Read Aloud feature and Macros.

What useful Microsoft Word shortcuts do you love to use? We’d love to hear about them in the comments below!

If you’d like to learn more about Book Cave promotions and receive more writing tips, please enter your email below and click the “Learn More” button to receive our author newsletter.

Copyright 2020 by Book Cave
Reuse notice: Non-commercial users, feel free to print out “11 Useful Microsoft Word Shortcuts for Authors” for personal use or give to friends, share online, or make a meme of, as long as you attribute and link back to this post. Commercial users, you may share a link to this post or quote a short excerpt from it with attribution and a link to this site, but you may not use this post in its entirety. Thank you for caring about copyright.

Avatar for Catia Shattuck
Catia Shattuck

I am a copyeditor and a typesetter of print books, and have been editing and typesetting (using InDesign) for twelve years. As the executive editor at Book Cave, I enjoy helping authors be successful, and I only get interrupted a little bit (ha!) by my cute, rambunctious one-year-old.


Share this authorpost

Keep Reading

Discount Your Ebook on Amazon

How to Discount Your eBook on Amazon

How do you discount your ebook on a big vendor like Amazon? There are a few ways to discount your ebook on Amazon, depending on whether or not your book is just published through KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) or published through KDP AND enrolled in KDP Select.

Promote Your Ebook on Pinterest

How to Promote Your Ebook on Pinterest

If you’ve chosen to promote your ebook on Pinterest, check out these tips and promotion ideas!

things authors are grateful for

18 Things Authors Are Grateful for

As Thanksgiving approaches, we think about what we’re grateful for. Here is our list of 18 things authors are grateful for.

Hello fellow book lover! We hope you are enjoying this post.
If you want free, content-rated ebooks that you can download straight from your favorite retailer, just sign up for our free newsletter
Sign me up!

Leave a Reply

Cancel


Comments

  1. C.S. Kjar
    C.S. Kjar • 2 years ago

    Thank you for the short list of shortcuts. I use all the functions, but not the shortcut way.

    Reply
Receive free ebooks on Amazon Kindle from Book Cave
Receive free ebooks on Apple Books from Book Cave
Receive free ebooks on Google Play from Book Cave
Receive free ebooks on Kobo from Book Cave
Receive free ebooks on Nook from Book Cave
Receive free ebooks on Smashwords from Book Cave
Book Cave
Book Cave Direct
My Book Ratings
MY BOOK RATINGS
Connecting the RIGHT readers with the RIGHT books
  • Sitemap
  • Contact Us
  • Free ebooks
© Book Cave - All the rights reserved!