Here's the replay of an Art of Copyediting webinar titled Essential Windows and Word Shortcuts for Writers and Editors held on January 10, 2021, as part of the ICF (Indian Copyeditors Forum) webinar series. For your convenience, the webinar recording has been broken down into smaller parts.

A few words about the downloadable shortcuts document and the videos . . .

• A lot of thought has gone into the preparation of the document. It provides an extremely methodical way of learning to use Microsoft Word effectively.
• Most writers and editors use Microsoft Word to make a living, but still do not know how to use the program efficiently.
• The structure of the downloadable document should help anyone to learn at least a few categories every week, and perhaps master these shortcuts in a month or two.
• Once these shortcuts are learned, writers and editors can focus on the core aspects of their profession and not feel the medium as a burden or obstacle to their work.
• The short videos do not cover everything in the document, but they give you clear demos of and also provide clarifications on specific aspects that may not be apparent to many and probably difficult for some. 

It would be a good idea to download the document first, understand its structure, and then keep it open (or even have a printed copy) and practice things in parallel while watching the videos.

If you're on a Mac, you may wonder whether these apply to your Macintosh machine. A Mac keyboard has many keys that function the same way as keys on a Windows keyboard. You can have a look at this link to learn how you may be able to use the same (or equivalent) keys on your Mac: https://support.apple.com/en-ng/guide/mac-help/cpmh0152/11.0/mac/11.0.

In the live Q&A session of the webinar, there was a question regarding the shortcuts for the options in the spell-check pane. And one editor also spoke about the usefulness of trackpad gestures for those using laptops. These have been added to the original  document; moreover, keyboard shortcuts to the touchpad gestures have also been indicated where possible. A few shortcuts relating to opening files or applications on the Taskbar have also been added in view of their usefulness in day-to-day work.

Hope you enjoy this! Feel free to share this page with your friends and editor buddies using the social media icons on the left of the page. And do leave your thoughts on the comments section below the videos.

Windows Shortcuts

Direct and indirect advantages of using keyboard shortcuts

Shortcuts document, the ribbon, and overview of Windows shortcuts

Windows File Explorer—navigation and file handling

Opening dialog boxes, switching between panes and windows

Navigating and closing dialog boxes

Miscellaneous Windows shortcuts

Word Shortcuts

Overview of Word shortcuts and principles used in navigation keys

Paragraph styles, document views, line spacing, character styles

Field codes and content controls

Text selection and editing

Table and Microsoft Edge shortcuts

Questions and Answers