How to select everything on a computer. How to highlight text using the keyboard - options
Almost all users have at one time or another needed to work with text. Writing messages in instant messengers and social networks, work documentation, essays, coursework, announcements - all this requires certain skills. If you work with large amounts of information, you will find it useful to learn how to select all text using your keyboard, and how to copy and paste the selected parts.
When you are busy typing, it is very inconvenient to be distracted by a computer mouse. Both hands are on the keyboard in constant motion. Why not use them to perform various actions in editors? Probably everyone knows how to select text using the mouse and how to copy it through the context menu. All these actions can be performed on the keyboard, often even with greater convenience.
Highlighting part of an article
When you enter characters, there is always a flashing vertical bar at the end of the line. This is a cursor, and it shows where you are currently staying. You can easily move it using the arrow keys on your keyboard. 
Pressing the left or right arrow will move the cursor one character in the corresponding direction. "Up" and "down" allow you to move between rows. This way, using the arrows, you can position the cursor at the part of the document or message that you need to highlight.
You can also use the Control key to move faster. When the service button is held down, the cursor will move not by characters, but by whole words. The down and up arrows will direct you to the beginning of the next or previous paragraph.
Next, you need to use the “Shift” key. For those who don't know, this is the button you hold down when you want to enter a capital letter. Hold "Shift" and start moving the cursor using the arrows. Words and symbols passed in this way will be highlighted. The Control key also works in selection mode. Hold down “Ctrl” + “Shift” - and you can select any word or paragraph with just one click. 
Select entire article
If you want to select an entire message or an entire open document, you can do this using a special key combination on your keyboard. Make sure that the text you need is active (this window is open). Then press the button "Control" and the "A" key(in the Russian keyboard layout this is the letter “F”). 
This way you can easily select all the text you need. If you are working with a large array of several (especially several hundred) pages, this method will help you save a lot of time. Please note that the key combination works in any active input language and in Caps Lock mode.
Copy and paste
If you need to send a message to several users or duplicate part of an article, this can be done using the “copy” and “paste” tools:
Please note that you can only copy 1 piece at a time. If you copy something else (not necessarily text, it could be a picture or even a file) the contents of the clipboard will be changed.
Keyboard commands are used to speed up operations with text or if the computer mouse (laptop touchpad) is missing/not working. First, let's look at how to move the pointer with the keyboard, which is true for Word. Use the arrows to get to the beginning of the desired fragment. For navigation, you can use buttons used in conjunction with the Ctrl key, see the table.
Pressing the Home/End buttons in Word moves the cursor to the beginning/end of the line; in browsers it moves to the beginning/end of the page. When you click on Page Up/Down, you scroll one screen up/down. After selecting the beginning of the fragment, you can select the text using a keyboard shortcut.
Usually you hold down the Shift button and arrows to highlight the corresponding direction, but more often you use the combination Ctrl + A to select all the text at once with the keyboard. There are many commands that use the Shift key (not applicable for browsers).
After selecting a fragment or group of words, you can format, delete, . These operations can also be done using the keyboard.
Selecting text with the mouse and keyboard
Selecting several words and paragraphs is more conveniently done with the mouse, and is applicable to browsers and text editors. You will need to move the pointer to the selected point, then hold down the left button and drag the mouse. This method is not always effective; for example, to select all the text at once, it is more practical to use the combination Ctrl + A.
To quickly select one word, left-click on it twice. To select a fragment, place the cursor at the beginning, then hold Shift and left-click on the end of the fragment.
Using the mouse, you can select several separate paragraphs. Hold Ctrl and mark any text fragments with the mouse (does not work in browsers).
The material looked at how to select text using the keyboard and mouse. There are keyboard shortcuts for many situations, but no one has canceled the use of the mouse. Depending on the circumstances, see what to use. Remember, combining a keyboard and mouse gives the best results.
Users often have to work with fragments of text or a group of words in programs (Word, browsers). The first thing you need to do is select the text using the keyboard or mouse. Not everyone knows how to use keyboard shortcuts and resorts to using the mouse. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, so it is recommended to combine them. In addition, read how to select files in a folder.
Selecting text with a keyboard shortcut
Keyboard commands are used to speed up operations with text or if the computer mouse (laptop touchpad) is missing/not working. First, let's look at how to move the pointer with the keyboard, which is true for Word. Use the arrows to get to the beginning of the desired fragment. For navigation, you can use buttons used in conjunction with the Ctrl key, see the table.
Pressing the Home/End buttons in Word moves the cursor to the beginning/end of the line; in browsers it moves to the beginning/end of the page. When you click on Page Up/Down, you scroll one screen up/down. After selecting the beginning of the fragment, you can select the text using a keyboard shortcut.
Usually you hold down the Shift button and arrows to highlight the corresponding direction, but more often you use the combination Ctrl + A to select all the text at once with the keyboard. There are many commands that use the Shift key (not applicable for browsers).
After selecting a fragment or group of words, you can format, delete, copy, paste the text. These operations can also be done using the keyboard.
Selecting text with the mouse and keyboard
Selecting several words and paragraphs is more conveniently done with the mouse, and is applicable to browsers and text editors. You will need to move the pointer to the selected point, then hold down the left button and drag the mouse. This method is not always effective; for example, to select all the text at once, it is more practical to use the combination Ctrl + A.
To quickly select one word, left-click on it twice. To select a fragment, place the cursor at the beginning, then hold Shift and left-click on the end of the fragment.
Using the mouse, you can select several separate paragraphs. Hold Ctrl and mark any text fragments with the mouse (does not work in browsers).
The material looked at how to select text using the keyboard and mouse. There are keyboard shortcuts for many situations, but no one has canceled the use of the mouse. Depending on the circumstances, see what to use. Remember, combining a keyboard and mouse gives the best results.
When working with documents in the MS Word text editor, you most often have to copy, paste or move individual pieces of text or images. It also happens that you were given a file that has many pages and you need to copy everything from it in order to paste it into another program or document. The usual selection with the mouse while holding down the left button is not entirely convenient, but there are other ways.
Now we will look at several more ways in which you can quickly select all text in MS Word.
Using a keyboard shortcut
Hot keys in various programs, including Microsoft Word, greatly simplify your work. There is no point in memorizing all the combinations; it is enough to learn and use those combinations that correspond to the actions that you perform most often.
For the selection we need, we need to press the “Ctrl” key and the English letter “A”. Here the keyboard layout, that is, whether you have selected Russian or English for typing, does not matter.
Once everything is highlighted in blue, press Ctrl+C to copy it, or Ctrl+X to cut and paste it into another document. If you want to completely delete everything, click Delete.
Selecting text using the keyboard and mouse
Place your mouse cursor at the very beginning of what you typed, then press and hold the Shift key on your keyboard (the long button with an arrow pointing up). Scroll to the bottom and place the cursor at the end of the text.
Once everything is selected, you can release the Shift button.
Quick selection using mouse
If you are used to using the mouse more often than the keyboard, then you can select everything, by clicking three times quickly with the left mouse button anywhere in the left margin.
The left margin is the white part of the sheet on the corresponding side. When you hover your cursor over it, the pointer changes from a stick to an arrow pointing to the right. If you click once with the mouse, the line opposite the cursor will be highlighted; double-click and the paragraph opposite the cursor will be highlighted.
But if you click on the left margin three times, the entire document is selected.
You can do everything without the keyboard using the corresponding menu of the text editor itself. On the Home tab in the group "Editing" click on the “Select” button. Then select Select All from the drop-down list.
How to highlight parts of text
In order to select individual fragments of what you have typed in a document, hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard. Without releasing Ctrl, select the necessary parts of the text with the mouse. Now you can delete, cut or copy them.
I hope these methods are useful to you. Select one of the ones described, and the problem of quickly selecting text will be completely solved.
Rate this article:
Most often, most computer users use a computer mouse to select text. However, there are situations in which the desired piece of text in a document stubbornly refuses to stand out. Instead, either a significantly larger part of the text than necessary, or a smaller one, is highlighted. In this case, highlighting text using the keyboard can help, which allows you to achieve an accurate result, saving you time and saving your nervous system. Also, selecting text from the keyboard is useful when selecting multi-page tests, as it allows you to perform the operation much faster than using the mouse.
How to highlight text using the keyboard
- Place the cursor at the beginning of the selected fragment. If it doesn't work out the first time, don't worry. You can always adjust the cursor position using the left and right arrows on the keyboard.
- Once the cursor is positioned at the beginning of the text being selected, press the Shift key on your keyboard and the Right arrow key. The cursor will begin to move while highlighting the text from the beginning of its path. Once the desired piece of text is completely selected, release the arrow button and then the Shift key.
- Press the context menu selection key on your keyboard or right-click on the selected text and select “Copy” from the context menu that appears. As a result, the selected text will be copied, placed on the clipboard and ready for subsequent pasting.
- You can use the keyboard shortcut to quickly select all text in an open document Ctrl+A(A - English from the word all - everything).
- To select text not character by character, but word by word (whole words), press the Ctrl key on your keyboard before pressing Shift. So the combination Ctrl + Shift + right arrow will highlight words to the right of the cursor, and Ctrl + Shift + left arrow- on the left.
- Keyboard shortcuts Ctrl + Shift + up arrow And Ctrl + Shift + down arrow highlight text in paragraphs above and below the cursor, respectively.
- The keyboard shortcuts Shift + PageUp and Shift + PageDown select text in the document page up and down, respectively.
- Keyboard shortcuts Shift + Home And Shift + End select text from the cursor to the beginning of the line and to its end, respectively.
- Keyboard shortcuts Ctrl + Shift + Home And Ctrl + Shift + End highlight text from the cursor position to the beginning and to the end of the document, respectively.