CHAPTER 29

Keyboard Customization

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Using shortcuts to assign shortcut keys
• Understanding shortcut keys and templates
• Advanced methods for finding commands
• Assigning shortcut keys to styles, symbols, and macros

To a Word power user, one of the most amazing pieces of Word trivia is that most users don't take advantage of the option to customize Word's keyboard. A power user knows that there's no need to drill down through multiple layers of choices from the Ribbon to choose a command or option that could easily be assigned to a simple keystroke.

Using the mouse may be more intuitive for many people, but it can actually slow a fast typist down. As your fingers fly along, it takes less time to add in a shortcut key combination than it is to move your hand off the keyboard, move the mouse around, and then return to the keyboard. If you possess good keyboard skills, creating your own keyboard shortcuts makes sense and can help you stay efficient. This chapter shows you how to take greater command of Word through the keyboard.

Understanding Customization Boundaries

The first thing you need to know when you consider customizing your keyboard is that Word effectively does not reserve any keys for particular commands. Unlike a lot of programs, in which you have no choice or little choice about what keystrokes you can assign to which commands, in Word your options are wide open. If you would rather that Ctrl+H be used to highlight selected text (yellow marker style) than be used for Replace, you can make that change. If Ctrl+T really doesn't work for you, mnemonically speaking, for hanging indent (or, better still if you had no clue that that's what Ctrl+T does), feel free to reassign Ctrl+T to the thesaurus, or to something else.

You have a variety of ways of remapping the keyboard. This chapter starts by showing you the shortcut methods for customizing the keyboard, and then moves on to the more complicated ways of doing so.

Viewing and Assigning Keyboard Shortcuts with the Cloverleaf Method

You can use a keyboard shortcut combination to quickly find out what almost any keystroke does, and to assign and remove keyboard shortcuts. Here's how:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+Plus Sign (on the number pad). This runs the Customize Keyboard Shortcut command which is one of the Commands Not in the Ribbon found in the Word Options dialog box when you customize the Ribbon or Quick Access Toolbar. The mouse pointer turns into the cloverleaf shown in Figure 29.1.

   FIGURE 29.1

   Press Ctrl+Alt+Plus Sign to display the cloverleaf mouse pointer, and then click a tool to work with its keyboard shortcuts.

   

2. Click any tool that has a command or macro assigned to it. The Customize Keyboard dialog box appears, shown in Figure 29.2.

   FIGURE 29.2

   Use the Customize Keyboard dialog box to add and remove keyboard shortcuts.

   

3. Type the new keyboard shortcut to assign to the command you clicked. In Figure 29.2, I pressed F3 (the Insert AutoText keystroke), so it appears in the Press new shortcut key text box.
4. Click the Assign button. This moves the new keyboard shortcut into the Current keys list.

   NOTE

   Before clicking Assign, ensure that the Save changes in setting is set to the correct template. If you're customizing a particular template, use it. Or use Normal.dotm if you want the assignment available all the time.

5. Click Close to dismiss the dialog box.

There are numerous instances where changing a keyboard shortcut can come in handy. Suppose, for example, that you have just clicked the Navigation Pane check box on the View tab for the thousandth time, and really would rather have a shortcut key assigned to it. Press Ctrl+Alt+Plus Sign, and then click Navigation Pane in the Show group of the View tab of the Ribbon. The Customize Keyboard dialog box appears. Under Current keys, nothing is currently assigned. Decide what you want to assign (if you never use Normal view, for example, you might consider Ctrl+Alt+N), press that key combination, click Assign, and click Close.

Note that the Customize Keyboard dialog box also includes a Remove button. You can display the dialog box, click a shortcut to remove in the Current keys list, and then click Remove to undo a keyboard shortcut assignment.

Choosing the Storage Location for Keyboard Shortcuts

You can specify whether to store any keyboard shortcut assignments within the current documents or the default template. The default Save changes in setting as shown in Figure 29.2 is Normal (Normal.dotm), but you can open that drop-down list and choose to save a keyboard assignment in any of three locations:

• The current document. Click the document name in the drop-down list. If you save a key assignment in the current document, that key assignment will be available only when editing that document.
• The template on which the current document is based (if different from Normal.dotm). Shortcut key assignments saved in the current template are available only when editing documents based on that template. Assignments in that template take precedence over assignments in Normal.dotm, but not over assignments in the current document (if they are different).
• Normal (Normal.dotm). This makes the keyboard shortcut assignment available in not only all current documents, but any new documents that you create.

As a general strategy, therefore, any key assignments you want to be available throughout Word, you should save in Normal.dotm. If an assignment is relevant only while editing a particular document or template, then save to the current document or template. For example, if you have a newsletter template that requires aligning numerous graphics and headings, you may want to assign a keyboard shortcut to the Gridlines check box in the Show group of the View tab and save the keyboard assignment in the template. Then you will be able to use the keyboard shortcut as needed to show and hide gridlines while creating each new edition of the newsletter.

Multi-Stroke Key Assignment

Ordinarily, most users think about keystrokes in terms of Ctrl+S, Alt+B, Shift+F5, and so on. Word does enable you to create these kinds of shortcuts, but you can also create another kind, such as Ctrl+S,1 or Ctrl+T,Z. For these assignments, you would press the initial keystroke, such as Ctrl+S, and then (after releasing the Ctrl and S keys) you would type an additional character, such as a 1.

Why would you want to do this? You might want to do this because it greatly expands the number of shortcut keys you can create for any given Ctrl, Alt, Shift + key combination. It also lets you do so in a logical and methodical way. For example, by default, Headings 1 through 3 are assigned to Ctrl+Alt+1 through 3. For some of us, that's not exactly an easy combination to press with one hand. Moreover, what about Heading 4 through 9? Many people use those styles as well.

What if, instead of those three difficult-to-press assignments, you could instead press Ctrl+Shift+X followed by 1 through 9? (By default, Ctrl+Shift+X toggles XML tags, so if you're not an XMLer, this might work for you.) That then gives you the much easier Ctrl+Shift+X to press, and easy-to-remember 1 through 9 for the respective heading styles.

Or suppose you frequently work with mail merge. Very few of the Mailings Ribbon tools have built-in key assignments. You might consider assigning Ctrl+M,S to Select Recipients, Ctrl+M,E to Edit Recipients List, and so on.

To create a multi-stroke assignment, open the Customize Keyboard dialog box for the desired command or tool, press the first combination, release the keys, and then tap the next key. The assignments will appear as Ctrl+M,S or Ctrl+M,E; the latter is shown in Figure 29.3. Click Assign and Close, and you're off and running.

FIGURE 29.3

Create a more robust or easier-to-reach shortcut using multiple keystrokes.

Customizing Keystrokes through Word Options

The cloverleaf method only enables you to set keyboard shortcuts for commands that appear on the Ribbon. Some commands aren't available in any of the ribbon tabs, and other commands are available only indirectly (for example, from inside a dialog box). When the quick cloverleaf method isn't available or otherwise doesn't work, you can use the Word Options dialog box to make the desired shortcut assignments. From it, you can assign almost any key to just about any command:

1. Choose File Options Customize Ribbon Customize (beside Keyboard shortcutsat the bottom of the dialog box). Notice that this time, the Categories and Commands lists display more choices, as shown in Figure 29.4. That's because previously, as shown in Figure 29.2, you used the cloverleaf pointer to select a single command prior to displaying the dialog box.

   FIGURE 29.4

   When you open the Customize Keyboard dialog box from Word Options, you can use the Categories and Commands lists to select the command for which you want to add a shortcut.

   

2. Click the category that holds the command for which you want to add a shortcut key. The commands in that category appear in the Commands list at the right. Note that I've selected the Mailings tab category in Figure 29.4.
3. Click the desired command in the Commands list. Figure 29.4 shows the MailMergeAddressBlock command selected.
4. Click in the Press new shortcut key text box, and press the desired keyboard shortcut.
5. Click Assign, and then Close.

That's the overview of how it works. Now let's examine the Categories and Commands lists of the Customize Keyboard dialog box a bit more closely.

Categories

The Categories list starts by organizing commands into a number of categories corresponding to the tabs on the Ribbon: File Tab, Home Tab, Insert Tab, Design Tab, Page Layout Tab, References Tab, Mailings Tab, Review Tab, View Tab, Developer Tab, and so on. If you're looking for a command that resides on the Home tab, try setting Categories to Home Tab. If you're looking for a References command, set Categories to References Tab.

As you scroll down the list of categories, the choices move from the main ribbon tabs and go to the specialized tabs, such as Add-Ins. Just in case you're wondering, Add-Ins corresponds to the commands you'll find in File Options Add-Ins. You'll next find a category entry for each of Word's contextual tabs, such as SmartArt Tools | Design Tab, Chart Tools | Design Tab, and Ink Tools | Pens Tab.

A little further down, you come to a very useful category: Commands Not in the Ribbon. This category is home to a number of legacy Word commands. If there's a tool from Word 2003 or earlier that you liked using and want to continue using in Word 2013, take a look in this category to see if you can find it.

Further down still, you'll come to All Commands, which has almost all of Word's commands in it, but not quite. Though it might seem easier to look in smaller categories, it's sometimes frustrating, because there's no guarantee that the command you seek is in the category that seems most logical to you. Your logic might not be the same as the Microsoft programmer who designed the categories. For that reason, sometimes your best shot is to aim for the All Commands list. If it's not there, then it's not anywhere.

At the bottom, the Categories list includes Macros, Fonts, Building Blocks, Styles, and Common Symbols. You can assign keyboard shortcuts to make these tools and settings more accessible.

Commands

With so many nice categories, you might think it would be simple to find the command you're looking for. The difficulty in determining what a particular command is called might explain in part why so few Word users take full advantage of the option to customize the keyboard.

To help you in this quest, notice the Description section of the Customize Keyboard dialog box (refer to Figure 29.4). As you scroll through the commands, a description of the command is listed there. That might help you when trying to locate the command you're looking for.

Here are a couple of tips that can help you zero in on a command more quickly:

• Run the ListCommands command to generate a list of all Word commands, and then search through that list to find the name of the command. See the next section for more on this method.
• Record a macro to do what you want, and then look at the macro's VBA listing to see what the commands are called. See Chapter 32 to learn how to create macros and view their contents.

List Commands

Word has a built-in command that few Word users know about: List Commands. This command creates a new Word document that contains a full list of Word's commands. Because it's a Word document, it is completely searchable and provides a handy way to find out what a particular command is called. Here's how to create a commands list document.

1. Choose File Options Customize Ribbon, click to check Developer in the Main Tabs list, and then click OK. This displays the Developer tab of the Ribbon.
2. On the Developer tab in the Code group, click Macros. The Macros dialog box appears.
3. Click in the Macro name text box, and type ListCommands. As shown in Figure 29.5, the Run and Step Into buttons become active. That means that the command or macro name you've typed actually exists in Word.

   FIGURE 29.5

   When you type the name of a command or macro that exists, the Run button becomes available.

   

4. Click Run. This causes the List Commands dialog box to appear, as shown in Figure 29.6.

   FIGURE 29.6

   Choose All Word commands to create a list of all Word commands and key assignments. Choose Current keyboard settings to see just a list of commands that already have key assignments (built-in and user-customized).

   

5. To list all commands, click All Word commands, and then click OK. Word responds by creating a new Word document (see Figure 29.7) with a three-column table: Command Name, Modifiers, and Key. Modifiers are the shifting keys you press, and Key is the main active key you press. For example, Alt+Ctrl+ and M, which you see for Annotation (unless you've changed it), means that you would press Alt+Ctrl+M to insert an annotation. (Press Ctrl+Z if you just did that and inserted an unwanted annotation into the current document.)

   FIGURE 29.7

   The resulting document lists Command Name, Modifiers, and Key in a table.

   

The listing contains all built-in commands as well as macros and all current key assignments. If you've changed an assignment, your assignment will be listed. When there are multiple assignments, there will be separate rows in the table for each assignment.

What you're interested in here, however, is command names, rather than assignments. Suppose, for example, that you remember a command in an earlier version of Word—one you haven't been able to discover in the latest version's interface. Search the list for words or word fragments that are related to the command you seek. There's a good chance that you'll find the command.

When you find a command name, open the Customize Keyboard dialog box, set Categories to All Commands, and look for the command name in the list of commands. As you search, keep in mind that Word commands don't contain spaces. Once you find the command you seek, you can assign it to a keystroke.

Other Methods for Assigning Keyboard Shortcuts

The Customize Keyboard dialog box isn't the only way to assign keystrokes to Word commands and tools. Word provides additional assignment methods that are available from other dialog boxes.

Styles

You can assign shortcut keys to styles from the Modify Style dialog box. Click the dialog box launcher for the Styles group in the Home tab or press Alt+Ctrl+Shift+S to display the Styles task pane. Scroll to the style for which you want to create a shortcut, right-click it, and choose Modify. In the lower-left corner of the Modify Style dialog box, shown in Figure 29.8, choose Format Shortcut key.

This displays the Customize Keyboard dialog box, with Categories displaying only the grayed-out Styles category, and Commands listing the selected style. Click in the Press new shortcut key text box, press the combination you want to use, set the Save changes in box as needed, click Assign, and then click Close.

If you want to assign multiple styles at the same time, this method can get old quickly. Instead, display the full-service Customize Keyboard dialog box as shown in the previous section, and set Categories to Styles. Then you can access multiple styles in the Commands list. If the styles you want aren't listed, see Chapter 7, “Using Styles to Create a Great Looking Document,” to learn how to display more styles.

FIGURE 29.8

Use the Format menu to start assigning a shortcut key to the selected style.

Symbols

A number of symbols already have default shortcut keys assigned to them. For a list, choose Insert Symbols Symbol More Symbols Special Characters. To assign a symbol that doesn't have a built-in shortcut, choose Insert Symbols Symbol More Symbols Symbols. Using the techniques described in Chapter 15, “Adding Drop Caps, Text Boxes, Shapes, Symbols, and Equations,” find the symbol you want to assign and then click the Shortcut Key button at the bottom of the Symbol dialog box (see Figure 29.9).

The Customize Keyboard dialog box appears, with Categories set to Common Symbols, and Commands listing the symbol you selected. Click in the Press new shortcut key text box, press the desired shortcut keystrokes, click Assign, and then click Close.

For access to multiple symbols, you can go through the full-service Customize Keyboard dialog box, setting Categories to Common Symbols. However, this will not give you complete access to all of the symbols you get when you go through the Symbol dialog box. Hence, if you're looking for something in particular and require the associated encoding, you'll need to go the Symbols route.

FIGURE 29.9

Apply a shortcut key combination to the selected symbol in the Symbol dialog box.

Record Macro

When you record a new macro, you can assign a keystroke to the resulting macro. In the Code group of the Developer tab (File Options Customize Ribbon, click to check Developer in the Main Tabs list, and then click OK), click Record Macro. Or, if the Developer tab hasn't been displayed, you can click the Record Macro button in the status bar. (To enable macro recording and playback from the status bar, right-click the status bar, click to check Macro Recording, and then press Esc.) Or, you can click the View tab, click Macros in the Macro group, and then click Record Macro.

When the Record Macro dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 29.10, type a name that will help you identify the macro later, add a description in the Description box, set Store macro in as appropriate, and then click Keyboard. This displays the Customize Keyboard dialog box, with the macro name listed. As before, click the Press new shortcut key text box if needed, press the combination, click Assign, and click Close.

If you forgot to assign a keyboard shortcut to a macro when you recorded it, you can open the Customize Keyboard dialog box through Word Options, as described earlier. Select Macros in the Categories list, click the desired macro in the Macros list at right (see Figure 29.11), and then add the shortcut key as previously described.

FIGURE 29.10

The best time to assign a shortcut assignment to a macro is when the macro is created.

FIGURE 29.11

Go through Word Options to assign a shortcut to a macro at a later time.

Summary

In this chapter you've seen a number of ways to assign keyboard shortcuts to a variety of tools, commands, styles, symbols, and other Word features. You should now be able to do the following:

• Use the cloverleaf method to quickly determine whether a given Ribbon tool already has a shortcut key assigned or to make a new assignment
• Assign keyboard shortcuts to fonts
• Make multi-key assignments to conserve Ctrl/Alt/Shift keys as well as to create logical systems of shortcuts
• Locate long-lost commands and assign keyboard shortcuts so you can start using them again
• Assign a shortcut to a macro that you are creating