Select text with the Extend Selection keyboard shortcut

While clicking and dragging is useful for selecting blocks of text, it can be cumbersome for finer selections, such as selecting individual characters or text that extends across multiple screens. Word's Extend Selection keyboard shortcut can help you make these selections more efficiently.

To activate this feature, follow these steps:

1. Move the cursor to the beginning of the text you want to select.
2. Press [F8]. (This highlights the EXT button in the status bar.)
3. Use the keyboard or the mouse to move the cursor to the end of the selection.
4. Press [Esc]. (This deselects the EXT button in the status bar.)

To select a line, press the up or down arrow keys. To select text to the end of the line, press [End]; press [Home] to select text to the beginning of a line. You can also press [Page Up], [Page Down], [Ctrl][Home], or [Ctrl][End] to move the cursor to the end of the selection.

You can also press [F8] only to select text.

• To select a word, move the cursor to the word, and press [F8] twice.
• To select a sentence, press [F8] three times.
• To select a paragraph, press [F8] four times.
• To select a section, press [F8] five times.
• To select the entire document, press [F8] six times.
• To shrink a selection, press [Shift][F8].

Microsoft Excel

When creating a chart, you don't need to confine yourself to Excel's built-in titles. You can replace those titles with free-floating text boxes that offer more formatting options.

To add a free-floating text box to your chart, follow these steps:

1. Click anywhere within the chart except a chart title or data label.
2. In the formula bar, type the text you want to appear in the text box, and press [Enter]. A text box containing the text you entered will appear in the middle of the chart.
3. Move the text box to the desired position in the chart.
4. Double-click the text box to open the Format Text Box dialog box.
5. Add the desired formatting, and click OK.

Microsoft Access

A quick way to add information to a form is to insert a subform. For example, let's say you have a form based on the Employees table, which displays each employee's name, address, phone number, and employee ID.

This form is your main form, but you want to add information from an Hours Worked query that includes a Date field and an Hour field, which list the total hours worked by employee ID.

To add this subform, follow these steps:

1. Open the main form in Design View.
2. Make sure you've selected the Control Wizards button in the Toolbox toolbar.
3. Press [F11].
4. Click and drag the Hours Worked query to the main form, which launches the SubForm Wizard.
5. This wizard lets you define which fields in the subform to link to the main form. For this example, choose date, hours_worked, and employee ID.
6. Enter a name for your subform, and click Finished.

When you run the form, Access will list the corresponding fields in the Hours Worked query for each employee in Datasheet View.

To change the view of the subform, right-click the subform in Design View, and choose Properties. On the Format tab, select another view from the Default View property's drop-down list.

In addition to queries, you can create a subform by clicking and dragging a table or another form from the Database window.