The most recent incarnations of Microsoft’s Office desktop software boast a large and ever-expanding array of commands and features. The enduring problem is: how to find and activate all of these fantabulous features? With enough patience and perseverance you can track them down, hidden away in Microsoft’s typically labyrinthine nest of tabs and ribbons, but all too often this can be a frustrating hit-and-miss endeavour, for it seems the choice of location for many commands doesn’t seem to conform to any recognisable system of logic known to homo sapiens.
Happily, there can be another way for Office users to circumvent Microsoft’s intimidating tabs and ribbons, especially for “old-school” PC users and veterans of the ‘pre-mouse’ era. Most of the commands in your mainstream MS Office program (e.g. Word, Excel, Outlook et al) can be activated via an equivalent keyboard shortcut; many of these are familiar and can be used to the same effect in most MS programs. (for example Ctrl+ C for copy, Ctrl + X for cut, Ctrl + Z for undo). The problem is: how is the average new user supposed to know what keyboard combinations do what?
Fortunately there exists, at least in Microsoft Word, a clever, “hidden” way of easily and instantly generating an exhaustive listing of keyboard shortcuts.
Word offers its users a means of automating and standardising routine procedures, via macros that the user can record and then play back as a single action. However, there are also pre-designed macros that are built into Word by default in a library called Word commands. You can locate this library by selecting Macros from the right of the ribbon attached to the View tab. (Why is it found on the View tab? See my earlier observation regarding Microsoft logic.) If you select Word commands from ‘Macros in..’ menu half-way down this dialogue box, you will find one of the macros therein is called “ListCommands”. If you select this macro, and then click on the Run button on the upper right,you will be prompted to create a document that lists all the keyboard settings in Word. This macro will actually a produce a brand new document containing a large table with a comprehensive listing of all of Word’s keyboard settings. You can then readily print out the resulting document, and by so doing, create a resource that might mean that you never need go near a Word tab or ribbon again.