PLACE CURSOR, INSERT, SELECT - MS Word 2007 Tutorial

While working in MS Word, you are frequently required to place the cursor at a desired location in the document and insert text as well as select text to carry out various operations.

In this tutorial, you will perform tasks to learn how to:

• Place cursor at a desired location in document and insert text
• Select text

Task-1: Placing Cursor & Inserting

Download the practice document “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” from About Tutorials page. Open this document in MS Word 2007 and place the cursor before the word “pictures” in the third line of the first paragraph and insert the word “nice”.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Method-1: Using Arrow Keys

Figure 1: Arrow Keys for Navigation

1. Open the practice document “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”. You will find the cursor flashing at the beginning of the first line of the document.
2. Press the Down arrow key. The cursor will move to the line below. Note that every press of the Up or Down Arrow key takes the cursor to the line immediately above or below the cursor. Similarly, every press of the Left or Right Arrow key moves the cursor one character to the left or right.
3. Press the down arrow key twice more so that the cursor comes down to the fourth line.
4. Move the cursor to the right by repeated pressings of the Right Arrow key until it reaches the beginning of the word “pictures”.
5. Type “nice” and insert a space by pressing the Space Bar.

Method-2: Using Mouse

Figure 2: I-Beam

1. Move the mouse pointer over text area in the document. The pointer will assume the shape of an I-beam (see Figure 2).
2. Point the I-beam to the left of the first letter of the word “pictures” in 4th line of 1st paragraph and click. Voila! The cursor jumps to the beginning of the word.
3. Type “nice” followed by a space.

Task-2: Selecting Text

Using the keyboard, select the word “worthwhile” in 4th line of first paragraph of the practice document “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”. Then, deselect the word and use mouse to select it again. After that, one after another, select second line of first paragraph, first four lines of the second paragraph, entire first paragraph and finally the entire document with the help of the mouse.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Method-1: Using keyboard

Figure 3: Shift key

1. Move the cursor to the beginning of the word “worthwhile” using arrow keys.
2. Press the ‘Shift’ key and while holding it down, press the Right Arrow key. The first letter “w” will be highlighted. 
3. Keeping the Shift key pressed, press the Right Arrow key repeatedly until the entire word is highlighted.
4. Release the Shift key. The word will remain highlighted, indicating that it has been selected. Following this method, you can select any number of words or lines, including the blank spaces in-between.

Method-2: Using Mouse

Figure 4: Second Line Selected

1. To deselect the word selected earlier, click anywhere in the document. Remember that selected text can be deselected by clicking anywhere in the document.
2. To select the word “worthwhile”, place the cursor at the beginning of the word.
3. Press the left mouse button and, while holding it down, drag the mouse pointer to the last letter of the word and release the mouse button. The word will be highlighted i.e. selected.
4. An easier alternative is to place the cursor anywhere in the word and double click the mouse. The word will be selected.
5. To select the second line of first paragraph, click in the left margin by the side of the line. Entire line will be selected (see Figure 4).
6. To select multiple lines of the second paragraph, click in the left margin by the side of the first line and, keeping the left mouse button pressed, drag the mouse pointer down to the fourth line and release the mouse button. All four lines of the paragraph will be selected (see Figure 5).
7. To select the first paragraph, place the cursor anywhere in the paragraph and triple click the mouse or double click in the margin by the side of the second paragraph. The entire paragraph will get selected.
8. To select the entire document, triple click anywhere in the left margin. Alternatively, press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + A. Whole document will get highlighted, i.e. selected.

Figure 5: Multiple Lines Selected

Recap

Placing cursor

• You can move the cursor to a desired location in a document using the arrow keys; the left & right keys move the cursor left or right by a character whereas the up & down keys move the cursor up or down by a line.
• You can move the cursor to a desired location by placing the mouse pointer over there and clicking the left mouse button.

Inserting Text

• To insert text at a desired location, place the cursor there and type the text.

Selecting Text

• To select text using keyboard, place cursor at the beginning of the text, press the Shift Key and move to the end of the text using the arrow keys.
• To select text using mouse, drag the mouse pointer from the beginning of the text to the end. Select lines and paragraphs by clicking and dragging mouse pointer in the left margin of the document.

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