Assign a Shortcut Key to your Styles in MS Word

Hopefully you all know something about Styles in MS word since they are the basic structure of your documents. For example, every blank document in MS Word is based on the Normal style. So every time you create a new document you are using a Style whether you realize it or not.

For those of you that have created your own custom styles this tip will certainly save you some time. Shortcut keys can be used to quickly apply styles to various paragraphs in your documents. Is that a time saver or what?  Think about it, suppose you work in a law office or academia and you frequently have to use block quotes.  Wouldn’t it be much easier to just key in your text and then go back when you are finished and use a quick keyboard shortcut to assign the block quote style to your text?

Follow the steps below to learn how to assign a keyboard shortcut to your style in Word 2007 and 2010:

  1. Display the task pane by clicking on the Home tab of your Ribbon and then in the Styles group, click on the tiny icon in the lower-right hand corner of the Styles.
  2. In the list of Styles, hover your mouse over the name of the style whose shortcut key you would like to change until a drop-down arrow appears at the right of the style name.
  3. Click the down arrow and select Modify to open the Modify Style dialog box.
  4. Click on Format and select Shortcut Key from the resulting menu to open the Customize Keyboard dialog box.
  5. Press the key combination you would like to apply to this style and note that any current assignments for that style will appear below what you keyed in.
  6. Once you are satisfied with your key combination, click on Assign.
  7. Click on Close.
  8. Click OK to close the Modify Style dialog.

I think you will agree that this is a great time saver!

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