Tip #7 - Selecting Text

100 Computer Tips in 100 Days

Tip #7 - Selecting Text - It's not a drag

You're probably saying to yourself, what could be easier than how you currently select text. You hold down the mouse and drag across the text! Absolutely, but that's often the hard way and I'm here to help you become more efficient.

To select the text above you would click to the left of the "t" in to,
hold down the Shift key and click to the right of the "d" in and.

I watch people all the time change a word in an email or in a word processing document as they very carefully position their mouse at the beginning of a word, hold down the mouse button and verrrry carefully drag their mouse across the word. If they miss the first letter they have to start all over again. Other people work even harder by clicking at the end of the word and pressing the Backspace key, once for every letter.

Here are some easy ways to select text:


Selecting a word - double click on the word
Selecting a paragraph - triple click on the paragraph
Selecting a variable amount - click at the beginning of the text, hold down the Shift key and click at the end. (In the picture above you would click to the left of the t in "to", hold down the Shift key and click at the end of "and")
Selecting the entire document - Ctrl (Command in Appleland) + a (a for all)

Once you practice these selection techniques you'll use them all the time. Also. if you're replacing text you have selected  just start typing the new words. You do not have to delete selected text. Since it is selected it is ready to be written over.

Happy Computing! See you tomorrow. - Diane