Every shortcut below shows the Windows and Mac key at once, grouped by what you’re actually doing in the document — not by an alphabetical wall of key combinations (a few genuinely don’t follow the simple Ctrl-to-Cmd swap; see Word shortcuts: Windows vs Mac for those exceptions). If you’d rather build the muscle memory than just read the list, try it right here — this is the same trainer as the full tool, quizzing you on the shortcuts below:
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Basics
Open, save, cut, copy, paste, find and replace — the shortcuts you’ll use in literally every session.
| Action | Windows | Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Open a document | Ctrl + O | Cmd + O |
| Save the document | Ctrl + S | Cmd + S |
| Cut | Ctrl + X | Cmd + X |
| Copy | Ctrl + C | Cmd + C |
| Paste | Ctrl + V | Cmd + V |
| Undo the last action | Ctrl + Z | Cmd + Z |
| Select all | Ctrl + A | Cmd + A |
| Split the document window | Ctrl + Alt + S | Cmd + Alt + S |
| Remove the document window split | Ctrl + Alt + S | Cmd + Alt + S |
| Print the document | Ctrl + P | Cmd + P |
| Find | Ctrl + F | Cmd + F |
| Open Find and Replace | Ctrl + H | Ctrl + H |
| Cancel the current command | Esc | Esc |
Navigation
Jumping around a long document one line at a time is one of the slowest habits to unlearn — these shortcuts jump by word, screen, or the whole document instead.
| Action | Windows | Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Move one word to the left | Ctrl + ← | Alt + ← |
| Move one word to the right | Ctrl + → | Alt + → |
| Move to the end of the line | End | Cmd + → |
| Move to the start of the line | Home | Cmd + ← |
| Move up one screen | Page Up | Page Up |
| Move down one screen | Page Down | Page Down |
| Move to the end of the document | Ctrl + End | Cmd + End |
| Move to the start of the document | Ctrl + Home | Cmd + Home |
| Jump to the previous revision | Shift + F5 | Shift + F5 |
| Open the Go To dialog | Ctrl + G | Cmd + Alt + G |
Selection
F8 turns on “extend selection” mode — press an arrow key or click to extend the selection to that point, without holding Shift the whole time.
| Action | Windows | Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Extend the selection | F8 | F8 |
| Shrink the selection | Shift + F8 | Shift + F8 |
Editing
| Action | Windows | Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Define an AutoText entry | Alt + F3 | Alt + F3 |
| Copy formatting (Format Painter) | Ctrl + Shift + C | Cmd + Shift + C |
| Paste formatting (Format Painter) | Ctrl + Shift + V | Cmd + Shift + V |
Paragraph
| Action | Windows | Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Center align | Ctrl + E | Cmd + E |
| Justify | Ctrl + J | Cmd + J |
| Align right | Ctrl + R | Cmd + R |
| Align left | Ctrl + L | Cmd + L |
| Indent | Ctrl + M | Ctrl + Shift + M |
| Remove indent | Ctrl + Shift + M | Cmd + Shift + M |
| Apply Heading 1 | Ctrl + Alt + 1 | Cmd + Alt + 1 |
| Apply Heading 2 | Ctrl + Alt + 2 | Cmd + Alt + 2 |
Text formatting
See Word formatting shortcuts for this cluster plus paragraph alignment and heading styles, all in one place.
| Action | Windows | Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Decrease font size by 1 point | Ctrl + [ | Cmd + [ |
| Increase font size by 1 point | Ctrl + ] | Cmd + ] |
| Bold | Ctrl + B | Cmd + B |
| Underline | Ctrl + U | Cmd + U |
| Italic | Ctrl + I | Cmd + I |
| Add a bulleted list | Ctrl + Shift + L | Cmd + Shift + L |
You’ve read the list. Now make it stick.
Reading through 42 shortcuts once won’t make any of them automatic — that only happens with repetition. If you want a system for actually remembering these instead of re-searching this page every time, see how to memorize Word shortcuts faster, or jump straight into the interactive Word shortcut trainer and start drilling the ones you’ll use most.