If you’re like me and spend a lot of time at a computer during the day, then you probably know the importance of keyboard shortcuts. Rather than looking for a command in a menu somewhere, shortcuts allow the user to instantly perform that command with a quick key combination instead. In this post I wanted to share all of the shortcuts I could think of relating to text entry on a computer, whether it be a long document, a short e-mail, or even programming code. What sets this apart from most other shortcuts is that they are (nearly) universal no matter what program you have open; anywhere you can type in text, these shortcuts will work. The more of these you memorize, the faster and more efficient you will be when typing.

Windows Shortcuts

• Moving the cursor around…
  • one character at a time: Left/Right
  • one line at a time: Up/Down
  • one word at a time: Ctrl+Left/Right
  • to the beginning of a line: Home
  • to the end of a line: End
  • to the beginning of the document: Ctrl+Home
  • to the end of the document: Ctrl+End

• Navigating website or program forms…
  • forward one field: Tab
  • backward one field: Shift+Tab

• Making a selection starting where the cursor is…
  • one character at a time: Shift+Left/Right
  • one word at a time: Shift+Ctrl+Left/Right
  • one line at a time: Shift+Up/Down
  • one paragraph at a time: Shift+Ctrl+Up/Down
  • one page at a time: Shift+PageUp/PageDown
  • to the beginning of the line: Shift+Home
  • to the end of the line: Shift+End
  • to the beginning of the document: Shift+Ctrl+Home
  • to the end of the document: Shift+Ctrl+End
  • to include everything: Ctrl+A

• Manipulating text to…
  • delete the previous word: Ctrl+Backspace
  • delete the next word: Ctrl+Delete
  • move selected text to the clipboard: Ctrl+X
  • copy selected text to the clipboard: Ctrl+C
  • insert text from the clipboard: Ctrl+V or Shift+Insert

• Some sample shortcut combos…
  • Delete the entire current line of text:
    Home; Shift+End; Delete
  • Delete the current line except for the first word:
    End; Shift+Home; Shift+Ctrl+Right; Delete
  • Move the first line of the document to the very end:
    Ctrl+Home; Shift+End; Ctrl+X; Ctrl+End; Ctrl+V

As you can see, a pattern exists behind these controls, such as the Shift key always being used for selections, and the Ctrl key used as a modifier to select larger chunks of text. Macintosh computers follow a similar paradigm, although some of the commands are set up differently, such as needing to press Command+Left to get to the beginning of a line instead of using the Home key. Learning these basic patterns and subsequently these shortcuts will undoubtedly save you a lot of time when working with text on a computer.

Extra Trick: Although these have to do with the mouse and not the keyboard, I wanted to share them anyway. Single-clicking somewhere will obviously place the cursor to that location, while double-clicking on a word will select that word, and triple-clicking on a word will select the entire paragraph that word is in. It even works in web browsers – try it on this page!

Do you know of a keyboard shortcut for text entry or editing that I missed? Let me know in the comments and I’ll include it on the list!