Editing Text
Selecting, moving, and modifying text efficiently. Once you know these techniques, editing a document becomes fast — no matter how long it is.
Navigating the Document
Moving through a document with the keyboard is much faster than using the mouse — especially in long documents.
| Key | Moves to… |
|---|---|
| ← → | One character left or right |
| Ctrl + ← / → | One word left or right |
| ↑ ↓ | One line up or down |
| Home / End | Beginning or end of the current line |
| Ctrl + Home | Very beginning of the document |
| Ctrl + End | Very end of the document |
| Page Up / Page Down | One screen up or down |
| Ctrl + G | Go To — jump to a specific page, line, or bookmark |
Selecting Text
Before you can format or move text, you need to select it. Word gives you multiple ways depending on what you want to select.
Modifying Text
Cut, copy, and paste are the foundation of moving content — inside the same document or between documents.
| Action | Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Cut | Ctrl + X | Removes the selected text and places it on the clipboard |
| Copy | Ctrl + C | Copies the selected text to the clipboard — original stays |
| Paste | Ctrl + V | Inserts clipboard content at the cursor position |
| Undo | Ctrl + Z | Reverses the last action — can be used multiple times |
| Redo | Ctrl + Y | Re-applies an undone action |
| Delete word | Ctrl + Backspace | Deletes the entire word to the left of the cursor |
| Delete word (right) | Ctrl + Delete | Deletes the entire word to the right of the cursor |
Paste Options
When you paste, Word shows a small clipboard icon. Click it to choose how the pasted content should look.
Find & Replace
Find locates any word or phrase in the document. Replace goes further — it finds text and swaps it with something else. Indispensable for editing long documents.
Opens the Navigation Pane and highlights every match in the document. Shortcut: Ctrl + F.
Opens the Find & Replace dialog with both fields. Replace one at a time or all at once. Shortcut: Ctrl + H.