Microsoft Word Tutorial: Jump Text Shortcut

 

As a writer, you often write bullet points or even sentences and paragraphs and then later realise that they are not appearing in the correct order (or sequence).

Most Word users simply try to resolve the situation during their edits by cutting and pasting the text.

But there is an easier way! Use Microsoft’s ‘Jump text’ shortcut (otherwise called Move Selected Text Up or Move Selected Text Down.  I use this shortcut all the time when I am working on resumes with clients, so I can jump more important tasks and skills higher up a bullet list because clients don’t usually list things in order of importance. I use it so often, it is my favourite shortcut!

How to use the “Jump Text” shortcut

1.      Open up Microsoft Word and type the following list exactly as it appears.  We are going to use this list to jump the text around without having to copy or cut and paste.

• ·Apple
• ·Orange
• ·Peach
• ·Pear
• ·Strawberry
• ·Mango
• ·Watermelon

Done?

2.      Okay, let’s pretend you are now up to revising the document you earlier typed up, and on further reflection, you need the text to appear in the following order instead:

• · Strawberry
• · Apple
• · Peach
• · Pear
• · Mango
• · Watermelon
• · Orange

But don’t do anything yet! 

Rather than cut and paste the text into the right order which most people immediately start to do, we are going to use the Jump Text keyboard shortcut to move the selection of text into the correct position.  Ready?

3.      First up, we are going to move the word ‘Strawberry’ up from being the fifth item in the list, to holding the number one position. We start by highlighting the word ‘strawberry’.  I assume you know how to highlight text, so do this in your Word document now then return to these instructions.

4.      Now we are ready to move the selected text up. Using your keyboard, find the Shift, Alt and Up Arrow keys. Found them?

5.      Press the Shift, Alt and Up Arrow keys at the same time.  If you need to, you can press and hold the Shift and Alt keys and then just strike the Up Arrow key.  Each time you use this combination of keys, the word ‘strawberry’ should jump up by one line, forcing the original line above it to automatically move down by one line, effectively swapping the two lines around.  Did it work?  Yes, great! Now move the word ‘strawberry’ all the way to the top. And by the way, Excellent!  Well done.

6.      Moving text down is a similar process. Except, instead of using the Up Arrow key, we will now use the Down Arrow key.

7.      Again, start by Highlighting the word ‘Orange’. Then, using the Move Selected Text Down shortcut, jump the word ‘Orange’ from its original second line position (but should now be the third option because we moved Strawberry up), and jump it down to being the last choice in our list.

There you go:  A quick and simple shortcut to help you move (jump) selected text up and down!

Now a few little pointers are in order.

You can only move whole lines of text, so if you highlight one sentence, but there are other sentences on the same line of text, then you will activate moving the entire paragraph rather than just the selected line of text.

You can’t jump text left or right, only up or down lines.  (I know, it would be great if they had of added this shortcut too).

Text does not have to be in a bullet or list for it to be jumped up or down.

Try another jumping text example:

·         Type in a couple of paragraphs of text, then highlight the middle paragraph and move it up to become the first paragraph.  If you have a manual blank line (by hitting the Enter key) to give you a gap between paragraphs, when you highlight the text, you will need to highlight that one blank row beneath your highlighted paragraph if you wish to keep your manual formatting of keeping that blank line of text between paragraphs.   See example in italics below:

Original...Blue arrows refer to manual blank lines created by Enter key

----->

Press the Shift, Alt and Up Arrow keys at the same time.  If you need to, you can press and hold the Shift and Alt keys and then just strike the Up Arrow key.  Each time you use this combination of keys, the word ‘strawberry’ should jump up by one line, forcing the original line above it to automatically move down by one line, effectively swapping the two lines around.  Did it work?  Now move the word ‘strawberry’ all the way to the top. Excellent!  Well done.
----->

Moving text down is a similar process. Except, instead of using the Up Arrow key, we will now use the Down Arrow key.
----->

Highlight the word ‘Orange’. Using the Move Selected Text Down shortcut, move the word ‘Orange’ from its original second line position (but should now be the third option because we moved Strawberry up), and move it to being the last choice.

Example, second paragraph moved without the blank text line below it – Arrows indicate the errors

Moving text down is a similar process. Except, instead of using the Up Arrow key, we will now use the Down Arrow key.
->Press the Shift, Alt and Up Arrow keys at the same time.  If you need to, you can press and hold the Shift and Alt keys and then just strike the Up Arrow key.  Each time you use this combination of keys, the word ‘strawberry’ should jump up by one line, forcing the original line above it to automatically move down by one line, effectively swapping the two lines around.  Did it work?  Now move the word ‘strawberry’ all the way to the top. Excellent!  Well done.
----->

----->

Highlight the word ‘Orange’. Using the Move Selected Text Down shortcut, move the word ‘Orange’ from its original second line position (but should now be the third option because we moved Strawberry up), and move it to being the last choice.

It is best to use the program’s Paragraph settings to automatically set space before or after a paragraph rather than manually entering blank lines of text by using the Enter key.  That way, if you need to jump full paragraphs, you won’t have the issue as occurring above.