You probably get used to selecting text horizontally from left to right or right to left, for example, to format or copy it. For the left to right selection, click just before the beginning of a word, and while holding the mouse button down, drag to the end of the section that you want to highlight. For the right to left selection doing everything backwards achieves the same result.

But what if you want to select a text vertically, for example, to apply some formatting to the first 2 words in the text of each line as on a picture? Here’s a handy tip.

You can select the text vertically. In order to do that, just hold down the <Alt> key on a keyboard whilst you are selecting the text as usually. You will get this result.

Now you can apply any formatting to it (here we selected Chicago font style).

Although in the example above we selected text at the beginning of the lines, you can make vertical selections anywhere on the page. It takes some practice to get use to but this handy tip can be used in Word 2007, 2010, and 2013.

Want more tips? Click on Microsoft Word Tips & Tricks