Making selections in Word (and many other places)

Hello Again:

Alright, so I'm going to be a little picky here...

One of the things that comes up all the time is when I am working with someone in a Word document and they click and drag the cursor over some text and say "here, I highlighted the text ..." I usually at that point go into a discussion about concepts and semantics. I say "you mean you selected the text?" They look at me like I'm crazy and say "OK, but you see the text is highlighted, right?" I say "yes, but that is the result of you having 'selected' the text."

So what's the point here? Clicking and dragging over text "selects" the text. The software "highlights" the text to let you know it is selected. Just to be clear, there is a "highlighting" feature in Word. So knowing about this and in light of the discussion, when someone tells me they "highlighted" some text in Word, I have to question their meaning of "highlight"; do you mean highlight or perhaps select? See what I mean...semantics.

Now that I have cleared the air about the concept of selecting text, how might I make selections in a Word doc??

Below are ways to select anything in a document from a single character to the entire document:

Any amount of text: Click where you want to begin the selection, hold down the left mouse button, and then drag the pointer over the text that you want to select. Or Click at the start of the selection, scroll to the end of the selection, and then hold down SHIFT while you click where you want the selection to end.

A word: Double-click anywhere in the word.

A line of text: Move the pointer to the left of the line until it changes to a right-pointing arrow, and then click.

A sentence: Hold down CTRL, and then click anywhere in the sentence.

A paragraph: Triple-click anywhere in the paragraph.

Multiple paragraphs: Move the pointer to the left of the first paragraph until it changes to a right-pointing arrow, and then press and hold down the left mouse button while you drag the pointer up or down.

An entire document: Move the pointer to the left of any text until it changes to a right-pointing arrow, and then triple-click or CTRL+A.

Try 'em out. These methods usually work in any text editor, not just Word. Talking about improving efficiency!

Take care in the meantime until next time. Joel