This article describes how you can select text in Word document quickly by using keyboard shortcuts and mouse clicks.

For example, you are composing a new Word document. It could be a business document, a documentation manual, an essay or for any purpose. Instead of writing a new document from scratch, you may be able to reuse an existing Word document that has similiar content.

You are moving those sections that you require to the beginning pages of the Word document by copying and pasting. The remaining chunk of the Word document is no longer useful and needs to be removed.

What many people do is to use a mouse to place the cursor where you want to start deleting, then drag all the way down to the end of the Word document before pressing DELETE. However, this copy of the Word document that you are using as a template is very long, with many pages. Hence, it is very tedious to scroll down through many pages.

Here is a simple way to achieve the same result. Make sure the cursor is placed before where you want the deletion to occur. Press SHIFT, CTRL and END keys at the same time. This will select text in Word document quickly from the cursor to the end of the document.

The table below summarizes how you could select a word, paragraph or section of a Word document quickly.

Part of Word DocSelectionKeyboard/Mouse Shortcuts
Whole documentSelect all textCTRL-A
Select from cursor to end of Word documentCTRL-SHIFT-END
Select from cursor to beginning of Word documentCTRL-SHIFT-HOME
WordSelect a wordClick twice on a word
Select from cursor to end of a wordCTRL-SHIFT-right arrow
Select from cursor to beginning of a wordCTRL-SHIFT-left arrow
ParagraphSelect a paragraphClick thrice in a paragraph
Select from cursor to end of a paragraphCTRL-SHIFT-down arrow
Select from cursor to beginning of a paragraphCTRL-SHIFT-up arrow