How to Select Text in a Microsoft Office 2007 Document

If you have updated to Microsoft Vista and are now trying to learn where everything is in Office 2007, you will have noticed that the SELECT TEXT feature is nowhere in sight. Instead of choosing SELECT or SELECT ALL from a drop down menu, for example if you want to copy and paste a portion of text, you will need to learn to click, double click, even triple click your mouse to make a text selection. Once you get the hang of it, though, it is actually quite a nifty system.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. To SELECT a single word in a document, position the cursor to the immediate right of the word and DOUBLE CLICK your left mouse button. The selected word will highlight. A font menu plus a command menu you are already familiar with if you have worked with Office documents in the past, will pop up when you right click your mouse.
2. To select a paragraph, DOUBLE CLICK your left mouse button somewhere outside the document in the margin to the left of the paragraph you want to highlight. Alternately, you can TRIPLE CLICK inside the body of the paragraph. Again, once you have made your selection, right click to bring up the font and command menus.
3. To select the entire document, TRIPLE CLICK your left mouse button in the document's left margin.
4. To choose a sentence, SINGLE CLICK your left mouse button somewhere in the sentence while pressing the CONTROL KEY on the keyboard at the same time. [ctrl + mouse]
5. To select multiple, non-connected words, sentences or paragraphs, make a first selection according to the steps above, and then add to your selection by pressing the control button on the keyboard while single or double clicking on a second word, sentence or paragraph.

Tips & Warnings

• As in older versions, it is still possible in Office 2007 to select text by dragging your mouse (left button pressed) over words, sentences or paragraphs.