To do something with the text, say, change the font used for writing, you need to select the text. Selecting small pieces does not cause difficulties even for novice users, because in Windows most of the operations can be done with the mouse. But when you need to select all the text in a large multi-page document, using the mouse can be very inconvenient. You are unlikely to be able to successfully hold the left button while you scroll the wheel and move the mouse horizontally (the end of the document rarely appears at the beginning of the line).
Hotkeys
Hotkeys are universal. To highlight everything in Word 2007, you need to use the same combinations that will work in other versions. When you know at least the most frequently used combinations, the work is greatly accelerated. To select the entire document, just press CTRL + A or CTRL and 5 on the numeric keypad. But how to select all the text on several pages, but not in the whole document?
Combinations with the SHIFT key will help you. You can do this: press the key and then use the mouse to mark the cursor where the selection began. Without releasing SHIFT, scroll the wheel and place the cursor in the place where the selection should end. Release the key.
SHIFT is paired with navigation keys. Leaving it pressed, you can select the desired segment up to one letter. When selected with the mouse, the system automatically tends to move the “black” area to the border of the last word, and this is not always necessary. Just hold SHIFT while you click on the arrows, and the selection will increase by exactly one character with each press of the index key.
Not everyone knows how to select all the text correctly using the F8 key. It includes a special selection mode, but if you do not press ESC at the end, replacing one character in the middle of the document will disappear its neighbor to the right. For example, you need to correct the word "ixt" to the correct option. If you erase the first letter and write “t” instead, in the F8 mode you will get “txt”.
F8 is just enough to press, no need to hold. After that, you can click on the borders of the selection or navigate through the text using the navigation keys. When you select the second option, press F8 after you have placed the cursor at the beginning of the selection.
Special features
In Word you will find some interesting ways to highlight all the text. If the entire document has the same formatting (in size and type of font), select at least one word and right-click to open the
context menu. In it, the item "Select text that has the same format", i.e. in our case the whole text.
With the ALT key pressed, you can select everything that is within the boundaries of the rectangle. The user points the opposite corners of the rectangle with the mouse.
Highlighting from the menu
Finally, we’ll show you how to select all the text from the menu. In Word 2007 and 2010, on the main tab, you need to open the "Edit" item. The right team is there. In the Word earlier version, “Select All” is located in the “Edit” menu.