Before you can edit or format your text, you need to select it. Selecting your text is a way of telling Microsoft Word that you want to work with a certain piece of text. (Selecting is also referred to as highlighting.)



The simplest way of selecting text is to position the cursor where you want to start highlighting, click and hold the mouse button down and drag to the spot where you want to end the highlight. It is not essential that you drag across every single line that you want to highlight. It is sufficient to drag in a straight line from the start to the finish.

To deselect your text and remove the highlight, click anywhere in your text. The flashing cursor will then reappear.

Another simple way of selecting text is to select the entire document. This is done via the "Select All" command. In Word 2007, the "Select All" command is found in the "Editing" section of the "Home" Tab. Click to display the "Select" menu and choose "Select All".

The "Select All" command can be found in lots of programs and lots of different environments. It can also be done via the keyboard using Control-A: that is to say, keep the Control key held down while typing "A".

As well as highlighting characters by dragging across them, Word also allows you to select whole lines. To do this, position the cursor in the left margin and you'll notice that the cursor changes to an arrow pointing to the right. Once the cursor has changed, you can simply click to select a single line or click and drag to select several lines.

Another way of selecting text is to click multiple times. To select a word, double-click on the word; to select an entire paragraph, click three times within the paragraph.

It is also possible to select text via the keyboard. Most of these techniques involve using the Shift key. One popular technique is click followed by Shift-click. First, click to set the start of the area that needs to be selected; next hold down the Shift key and click to set the point where you want the selection to end. All the text between the two clicks will then be selected.

To highlight text without the mouse, use the cursor keys on your keyboard to position the cursor where you want your highlight to begin. Next, press Shift in conjunction with one of the cursor keys. To highlight character by character, press the right or left cursor key depending on the required direction. To highlight line by line press the down or up cursor key.

The Shift key can also be used together with the Control key. For example, if you hold down Control and Shift then press the right arrow, you will highlight word by word instead of character by character. Similarly, if you hold down Control and Shift and press the down cursor key, you will highlight paragraph by paragraph.

The Home and End keys can also be used in this context. For example, if the cursor is positioned in the middle of a line, pressing Shift and Home will select from that position to the start of the line while pressing Shift and End will select from the cursor position to the end of the line. Holding down Control and Shift and pressing the right arrow will select from the cursor position to the start of the document. Control, Shift and End will select from the cursor position to the end of the document.