Chapter 6
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding blocks of text
Marking a block with the keyboard
Selecting text with the mouse
Using the F8 key to mark text
Unblocking text
Copying and moving blocks of text
Pasting text in various ways
Writing is about blocks. From the moveable blocks used by the ancient Chinese for printing to the inevitable writer’s block. In Word, blocks refer to selected chunks of text in a document, which I believe you’ll find more useful than the other types of blocks.
“Hello, Mr. Block! What do you do?”
“Well! I’m a block of text. I have a beginning and an end. I can be any size, from a single character to the entire document.”
To create Mr. Block in your document, you select text. You can use the keyboard. You can use the mouse. You can use both at once or employ some of Word’s more esoteric text-selection commands.
A block of selected text appears highlighted in a document, similar to what’s shown in Figure 6-1.
Once a block of text is selected, you can perform certain actions that affect only the text in that block. You can also copy, move, or delete the block.
To help format a selected block of text, the mini toolbar appears, as shown in Figure 6-2.
The mini toolbar hosts popular commands found on the Ribbon, allowing you to quickly format the block of text. You can also right-click the selected text, in which case you see both the mini toolbar and a shortcut menu, also shown in Figure 6-2.
Selecting text also means selecting invisible characters such as the tab or the Enter character, which marks the end of a paragraph. Word shows the Enter character as an extra blank space at the end of a paragraph. When you select that blank, you select the whole paragraph as a block. To avoid selecting the Enter character, don't select the blank space at the end of a paragraph.
Before you can work with a block of text, you must tell Word where the block starts and where it ends. The process is known as marking or selecting a block of text.
You can use the keyboard’s cursor keys to select text, but only when you know the secret: Press and hold down the Shift key as you move the cursor. When the Shift key is down, Word’s standard cursor-key commands not only move the insertion pointer but also select chunks of text. Table 6-1 lists common key combinations.
TABLE 6-1 Keyboard Selection Wizardry
To Select This |
Press This |
A character at a time to the right of the insertion pointer |
Shift+→ |
A character at a time to the left of the insertion pointer |
Shift+← |
A block of text from the insertion pointer to the end of the line |
Shift+End |
A block of text from the insertion pointer to the beginning of the line |
Shift+Home |
A block of text from the insertion pointer to a line above |
Shift+↑ |
A block of text from the insertion pointer to a line below |
Shift+↓ |
Mickey may rule a kingdom, but your computer’s mouse rules over text selection in your computer.
Position the mouse pointer at the start of the text block, and then drag the mouse over the text you want to select. As you drag, the text becomes highlighted or selected.
This technique works best when you use the mouse to drag over only the text you can see on the screen. When you try to select text beyond what you see on the screen, you have to select and scroll, which can be unwieldy.
A speedy way to select specific sizes of chunks of text is to match the power of the mouse with the dexterity of your index finger. Table 6-2 explains some clicking-and-selecting techniques worth noting.
TABLE 6-2 Mouse-Selection Arcana
To Select This Chunk of Text |
Click the Mouse Thusly |
A single word |
Double-click the word. |
A line |
Move the mouse pointer into the left margin beside the line you want to select. The mouse pointer changes to an arrow pointing northeastward. Click the mouse to select a line of text. Drag the mouse up or down to select several lines. |
A sentence |
Position the insertion pointer over the sentence and Ctrl+click. (Press the Ctrl key and click the mouse.) |
A paragraph |
Point the mouse somewhere in the paragraph’s midst and click thrice (triple-click). |
Click the mouse to set the insertion pointer wherever you want the block to start.
I call this location the anchor point.
Scroll through your document.
You must use the scroll bar or the mouse wheel to scroll through your document. If you use the cursor-movement keys, you reposition the insertion pointer, which isn’t what you want.
Hold down the Shift key and click the mouse where you want the block to end.
The text from the insertion pointer to wherever you clicked the mouse is selected as a block.
To exit Extend Selection mode, you can either do something with the block of text or press the Esc key to cancel.
To help you with the F8 key and Extend Selection mode, right-click the status bar and choose the Selection Mode item. The text Extend Selection appears on the status bar when this mode is active.
Press the F8 key twice to select the current word.
The biggest block you can mark is an entire document. Word has a specific command to do it. Follow these steps:
In the Editing group, choose Select ⇒ Select All.
The entire document is marked as a single block o’ text.
And now, the keyboard shortcut: Press Ctrl+A to select an entire document as a block.
When you mark a block of text and change your mind, you must unmark, or deselect, the text. Here are a few handy ways to do it:
You can block punches, block hats, block and tackle, play with building blocks and engine blocks, take nerve blocks, suffer from mental blocks, jog for blocks, and, naturally, block text. But what can you do with those marked blocks of text?
Why, plenty of things! You can apply a format to all text in the block, copy a block, move a block, search for text in a block, proof a block, print a block, and even delete a block. The information in this section explains a few of those tricks.
When a block of text is marked, various Word commands affect only the text in that block.
After a block is marked, you can copy it to another part of your document. The original block remains untouched by this operation. Follow these steps to copy a block of text from one place to another:
Mark the block.
Detailed instructions about doing this task are offered in the first part of this chapter.
In the Clipboard group, click the Copy command button.
You get no visual clue that the text has been copied; it remains selected.
Click to set the insertion pointer at the position where you want to place the block’s copy.
Don’t worry if there’s no room! Word inserts the block into your text.
Click the Paste command button.
The block of text is inserted into your text just as though you had typed it there by yourself.
The keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste are Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, respectively. You’ll probably use these keyboard shortcuts more than the command buttons in the Home tab’s Clipboard group.
The Paste command continues to paste the copied text, over and over — that is, until new text is selected and copied (or cut). Pasting text again simply pastes down a second copy of the block, spit-spot (as Mary Poppins would say).
To move a block of text, you select the text and then cut and paste. This process is almost the same as copying a block, described in the preceding section, although in Step 3 you choose the Cut command button (shown in the margin) or press Ctrl+X on the keyboard. Otherwise, all steps are the same.
Don't be alarmed when the block of text vanishes! That's cutting in action; the block of text is being moved, not copied. You see the block of text again when you paste it.
When you paste text in Word, you may see the Paste Options icon appear, as shown in the margin. This button allows you to select formatting to apply to the pasted block. For example, you can choose to retain the formatting as pasted, choose to paste in the text plain and unformatted, or choose to have the pasted text match the style of the text around it.
To work the Paste Options button, click it with the mouse or press and release the Ctrl key on the keyboard. You see a menu of options, illustrated in Figure 6-3.
Table 6-3 summarizes some of the common paste options.
TABLE 6-3 Paste Option Options
Icon |
Keyboard Shortcut |
Name |
Description |
|
K |
Keep Source Formatting |
The formatting is okay; don’t do a thing. |
|
M |
Merge Formatting |
Reformat the pasted block so that it matches the text it’s being pasted into. |
|
T |
Keep Text Only |
Just paste in the text — no formatting. |
For example, to keep only text with a copied or cut block (no formatting), press the Ctrl key and then tap the T key after pasting. That’s two separate keys, not Ctrl+T.
Using the Paste Options icon is utterly optional. In fact, you can continue typing or working in Word and the icon bows out, fading away like some nebbish who boldly asked a power blonde to go out with him and she utterly failed to recognize his existence. Like that.
When you need to move a block only a short distance, you can use the mouse to drag-move or drag-copy the block.
To move any selected block of text, hover the mouse pointer anywhere in the blocked text and then drag the block to its new location. As you drag the block, the mouse pointer changes, as shown in the margin. That means you’re moving a block of text.
To copy a block of text, point the mouse pointer at the block — just as though you were going to move the block — but press and hold down the Ctrl key as you drag. When you drag the block, the mouse pointer changes to resemble the icon shown in the margin. That’s your clue that the block is being copied and not just moved.
To create a linked copy of the block, drag the mouse and hold down both the Shift and Ctrl keys. When you release the mouse button, the copied block plops down into your document with a dark highlight. It's your clue that the copy is linked to the original; changes in the original are reflected in the copy and vice versa. If the linked copy doesn’t update, right-click the text and choose the Update Link command.
All text you copy or cut is stored in a location called the Clipboard. This is the standard cut-copy-paste holding bin for text in Windows. In Word, however, the Clipboard is more powerful than in other Windows programs. Specifically, you can use the Clipboard task pane to examine items cut or copied, and paste them again in your document in any order.
To copy a chunk of text from the task pane to your document, heed these steps:
In the Clipboard group, click the dialog box launcher.
You see the Clipboard task pane, along with all text cut or copied since you’ve started the Word program, similar to what’s shown in Figure 6-4.
Position the mouse pointer at an item in the task pane.
A menu button appears to the right of the item.
Click the menu button and choose the Paste command.
The text is pasted into your document.
Unlike using the Ctrl+V keyboard shortcut, or the Paste button on the Ribbon, you can paste text from the Clipboard in any order, and even summon text you copied or cut hours ago or text you copied or cut from other Microsoft Office programs.
Also see Chapter 32 for information on using the Collect and Paste feature, which takes advantage of the Clipboard task pane.
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