Selecting text in Microsoft Word. Selecting text in Word: how to select and how to remove selection Command in Word select all

When working with documents in the MS Word text editor, you most often have to copy, paste or move individual pieces of text or images. It also happens that you were given a file that has many pages and you need to copy everything from it in order to paste it into another program or document. The usual selection with the mouse while holding down the left button is not entirely convenient, but there are other ways.

Now we will look at several more ways in which you can quickly select all text in MS Word.

Using a keyboard shortcut

Hotkeys in various programs, including Microsoft Word, greatly simplifies the work. There is no point in memorizing all the combinations; it is enough to learn and use those combinations that correspond to the actions that you perform most often.

For the selection we need, we need to press the “Ctrl” key and the English letter “A”. Here is the keyboard layout, that is, you have selected Russian or English language for typing, it doesn't matter.

Once everything is highlighted in blue, press Ctrl+C to copy it, or Ctrl+X to cut and paste it into another document. If you want to completely delete everything, click Delete.

Selecting text using the keyboard and mouse

Place your mouse cursor at the very beginning of what you typed, then press and hold the Shift key on your keyboard (the long button with an arrow pointing up). Scroll to the bottom and place the cursor at the end of the text.

Once everything is selected, you can release the Shift button.

Quick selection using mouse

If you are used to using the mouse more often than the keyboard, then you can select everything, by clicking three times quickly with the left mouse button anywhere in the left margin.

The left margin is the white part of the sheet on the corresponding side. When you hover your cursor over it, the pointer changes from a stick to an arrow pointing to the right. If you click once with the mouse, the line opposite the cursor will be highlighted; double-click and the paragraph opposite the cursor will be highlighted.

But if you click on the left margin three times, the entire document is selected.

You can do everything without the keyboard using the corresponding menu of the text editor itself. On the Home tab in the group "Editing" click on the “Select” button. Then select Select All from the drop-down list.

How to highlight parts of text

In order to select individual fragments of what you have typed in a document, hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard. Without releasing Ctrl, select the necessary parts of the text with the mouse. Now you can delete, cut or copy them.

I hope these methods are useful to you. Select one of the ones described, and the problem of quickly selecting text will be completely solved.

Rate this article:

The Internet is a huge world where everyone will find something valuable for themselves. Some people like to watch videos on, others prefer to communicate on thematic forums, and still others use world wide web like an encyclopedia. Indeed, here you can find so much valuable information that you wouldn’t be able to read in a lifetime. Some important files we save in Text Document. Fortunately, browsers allow you to select both entire pages and individual fragments, words or even letters. But not all PC users know how to do this. But it doesn’t matter, we will help you!

Highlighting: Various Methods

  • Popular browsers (, Google Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer) do not differ at all from each other in this regard. If you need to copy some fragment of text on the site, then simply move the mouse arrow to the initial word and select the desired text. On most sites, this background around the text changes color, although on some no changes are noticeable at all - it depends on the preferences of the owners of Internet resources. By the way, on some sites the text cannot be copied - this is a kind of protection against the theft of articles, which is very easy to bypass (the text can be found through the code using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+U and further search).
  • If you wanted to select all the text present on the page at once, then you don’t even need a mouse for this. Just press the key combination CTRL+A (meaning the Latin letter A). The same can be done by selecting “Edit” - “Select All” from the browser menu. But keep one thing in mind important point— absolutely everything will be highlighted, including various links and even pictures. However, you can always deselect it by holding down the Shift key and selecting the desired piece of text. All this fully concerns Microsoft documents Office Word.
  • If you are not satisfied with highlighting everything on a page of a website or document, then we recommend doing the following. Select text, click on left button mouse next to the first word of an article or paragraph. Then hold down the Shift key and hold. Now find the last word in a paragraph or article, click the left mouse button next to it and only now can you release Shift. This way you have selected the fragment you need. You can see this method in more detail in the screenshot below:

Sometimes you need to highlight text or a fragment of it in Word. The easiest way is with the mouse, but this is old and no longer interesting. Because it takes a lot of time, and why bother, it’s long and tedious, you need to waste it. What if your hand suddenly trembles? Then you'll have to start over.

Therefore, smart people came up with the interaction of the Ctrl key with others (we will return to this later). In this case, if we talk about selecting text, there is a “golden combination” that provides the ability to instantly select – Ctrl+A. By pressing both at the same time, you are guaranteed to select all the text, as you can see absolutely everything, even with side lines and a picture:

By holding the Ctrl and Shift keys simultaneously, you can select a piece of text anywhere with the mouse. This combination allows, for example, to select one word or one line (as can be seen in the screenshot) with the mouse without releasing these keys.

Other tips: If you want to "highlight" a word, double-click on it to highlight the line - move the cursor to the left so it becomes an arrow pointing to the right, and then click. If you want to select a paragraph, then you will have to triple-click on it. But if we are talking about several paragraphs, then you should drag the cursor to the left edge of the first of the selected paragraphs so that it also becomes an arrow (to the right), and then, while holding down the left mouse button, move the arrow either up or down.

Shift + Left Arrow, Shift + Right Arrow, Shift + Up Arrow, Shift + Down Arrow - this is the combination that ensures the selection of text line by line and each letter in specified directions (left, right, up and down). They should also be pressed simultaneously, placing the cursor at the beginning of the line:

The combination Ctrl+Shift+Left Arrow and Ctrl+Shift+Right Arrow allows you to highlight a specific word in the text, and more than one. This also happens when you simultaneously press Ctrl and Shift, and then the left and right arrows.

Now, as promised, let's talk about one more hotkey in combination with Ctrl. One of the most useful is Ctrl+P, which allows you to print the file you select. It is also possible to select the number of copies, the printer you need and much more, as shown in the following screenshot.

With text selection in Word and others text editors Even an absolute teapot can handle it without any problems. You just need to hold down the left mouse button and select the desired piece of text. This is very convenient when we are talking about small parts of text, for example, a single word or sentence. However, there are times when you need to select text in a large document of several dozen pages. In this case, manually selecting text takes a long time and the selection does not always occur correctly, since there is a risk that the cursor will get lost and a certain fragment will not fall under the selection.

How to select all text in MS Word

The developers of both Word and Windows have foreseen the need to select large text in just a couple of seconds. Let's look at all the available options.

Option 1: Keyboard shortcut

By default, in Windows, to select all text in some active window or form, use the combination Ctrl keys+A. It also applies to working with Word document. Just place the cursor on any page and use the specified combination. All text will be highlighted.
The method is very convenient, but sometimes it happens that the keyboard or the necessary keys do not work. What to do in this case?


Option 2: Word's Highlight Tool

Instead of using the above combination, you can call a special function in the Word program itself. You can use it according to the following instructions:


By analogy with the previous option, you can do any operations with the selected text: copy, cut, delete, change formatting, etc.

Option 3: Select with the mouse

It is worth mentioning in advance that this method Doesn't work in all versions Word programs. Its essence is as follows:

  1. Move your cursor to the desired heading. If the document does not have headings, then set it opposite the first line of the required paragraph. Please note that after this the cursor will change its direction - it will point to the right.
  2. Click three times when you see that the cursor has changed its appearance. After this, all the text that goes under the line you hovered over will be highlighted. If you selected the title, then only the text that is located on this moment under this heading.

This method is convenient because you can select not the text in the entire document, but the text that follows a certain paragraph or strings. However, remember that this option does not always work.

As you can see, there is nothing complicated about selecting all the text in Word. Everything is done either with a simple keyboard shortcut or with a few mouse clicks. Share this article with your friends if you found it useful, maybe you can help someone else.

You can highlight text in Word either to make it more visible in the text or if you need to delete it, copy it, move it, or format it. Let's briefly consider each of the options, and start by selecting the text to perform any further actions on it.

There are plenty of ways to highlight text in Word, but even a person who knows all these methods of highlighting uses only a few options that are convenient for him personally. We will look at some convenient methods of selection.

How to select text in Word using the mouse?
Selecting text in Word using the mouse is the simplest, most common and quick way discharge. It is necessary to position the cursor before the beginning of the selected text, press the left mouse button, and select all the necessary text by dragging the cursor to the end of the selected text. When selecting large amounts of text, you can use the link, holding down the key "Shift" and a mouse. Place the cursor at the beginning of the selected text, scroll the page to the end of the selected text, hold down the key "Shift" and use the mouse to place the cursor at the end of the selected text.

But this method has one small drawback. In Word, by default, there is a setting that automatically selects entire words when you try to select them. This is not always convenient and makes the user suffer when it is necessary to highlight part of a word. But fortunately, this function can be easily disabled and when you select text with the mouse in Word, only the required fragment will be selected, and not the entire word automatically. Go to the menu “File\Options\Advanced” and uncheck the box next to the item "Automatically highlight words".

How to select text in Word using the keyboard?
Selecting text in Word using the keyboard without the initial participation of the mouse will still not work, because you need to set the cursor to the required position, although this can only be done using position keys, moving the cursor step by step.

Selecting text using the keyboard involves using a key combination, holding down a key "Shift" and position keys "left, right, up, down".

How to highlight text in Word in different places?
Word allows you to select text in different places, and all you need to do is hold down a key "Ctrl". The principle of selection is as follows: select the first part of the text with the mouse, then move on to the next part of the text, hold down the key "Ctrl" and select the required text, and so on ad infinitum, until you accidentally click the mouse on the sheet without holding down a key "Ctrl".

How to select all text in Word?
To select all text in Word, you can use a keyboard shortcut "Ctrl + A", which works in all programs. You can also use the menu "Select all" on the tab "Home".

How to highlight text in Word with color?
You can highlight text in Word using the menu "Text highlight color" on the tab "Home". To do this, select the text in any convenient way, select the menu "Text highlight color" and indicate the required color.