Word selection select all

Check Out These 6 Ways to Select All in Microsoft Word Documents

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated March 24, 2022

Applies to: Microsoft^® Word^® 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 or 365 (Windows)

In Microsoft Word documents, you can select all using the Ribbon or keyboard shortcuts. You can select all text in a document, select from the cursor to the end or the beginning of the document, select all text with similar formatting or select all cells in a table.

Recommended article: 10 Microsoft Word Tips, Tricks and Shortcuts for Selecting in Tables

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When you select all using a keyboard shortcut or the Ribbon, the main content of the document is highlighted and headers and footers are selected only if there are section breaks in the document because headers and footers are attached to sections. Headers and footers for the last section are not included as the last section is not followed by a section break. If you are trying to select all to change the font and size for an entire document, a better strategy is to use themes and styles.

1. Select all using a keyboard shortcut

To select all using a keyboard shortcut, click in the document and then press Ctrl + A to select the entire document.

2. Select all using the Ribbon

To select all using the Ribbon:

1. Click in the document.
2. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
3. In the Editing group, click Select. A drop-down menu appears.
4. Click Select All.

Select All appears in the Select drop-down menu on the Home tab in the Ribbon:

3. Select all from the cursor to the end of the document

To select all from the cursor to the end of the document using a keyboard shortcut, position the cursor where you want to start the selection and then press Ctrl + Shift + End.

4. Select all from the cursor to the beginning of the document

To select all from the cursor to the beginning of the document, position the cursor where you want to start the selection and then press Ctrl + Shift + Home.

5. Select all text with similar formatting

To select all text with similar formatting:

1. Select the text with the desired formatting.
2. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
3. In the Editing group, click Select. A drop-down menu appears.
4. Click Select Text with Similar Formatting.

All text with the same formatting will be selected and you can clear the formatting or apply other formatting.

Select Text with Similar Formatting appears in the Select drop-down menu on the Home tab in the Ribbon:

6. Select all cells in a table

To select all cells in a table, click in the table, press Alt and then double-click. You can also click the four-arrow pointer on the top left of the table.

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While it’s easy and efficient to use your mouse when you want to highlight a word or sentence, it can get progressively more difficult when you need to select more text.

Things get even tougher when you want to select an entire document, especially if that document is several pages in length.

Luckily there are a couple of different methods you can use when you want to select all in Word.

How to Select All of Your Document in Microsoft Word

1. Open your document in Word.
2. Click the Home tab at the top of the window.
3. Choose the Select option, then click Select All.

Our article continues below with additional information on selecting all in Microsoft Word, including pictures of these steps.

Using your mouse to highlight text in a document can be useful when you only need to select a word, sentence, or paragraph, but it can quickly become frustrating when you need to select more. And if you have ever found a need to highlight everything in a word processing application, then you may be wondering how to select all in Word.

Sometimes you will need to select everything in a document if you are copying it somewhere else, or if you need to change a font or formatting. Or maybe you have one large document that consists of data from several smaller documents, and the final submission needs all of the information from those smaller documents in one location.

If you’ve ever tried to manually select everything in a Microsoft Word document by clicking and dragging with your mouse, then you may be aware of how frustrating that can be. Sometimes selected text can be unselected if you accidentally click your mouse, or let go of the mouse button for a split second.

Luckily there is a way to quickly select all in Microsoft Word by using an option that you will find in the ribbon menu at the top of the window. There is also a keyboard shortcut that we will show at the end of the article.

Once you are familiar with how to select your entire document, you can use this option to change spacing in Word for a document that you have already written.

How to Select All in Microsoft Word (Guide with Pictures)

The steps in this article were performed in the Microsoft Word for Office 365 version of the application but will work in many other versions as well.

Once you are comfortable with how to select all in Word it will make things much easier when you need to change a setting for your entire document, like the font, or a formatting option like bold or italic text.

Now any change that you make will be performed on everything in the document. This is a great way to change the spacing for an entire document, switch fonts, or change a formatting option.

More Information on Selecting All in a Microsoft Word Document or Other Microsoft Office Apps

You can also select all in Microsoft Word with the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl + A. To use this, simply click somewhere inside the document, then simultaneously press the Ctrl key and the A key on your keyboard. This is a really handy keyboard shortcut to memorize because it will work in many other applications as well.

The select all shortcut works in other word processing applications, too, such as Google Docs. Microsoft Office also allows these shortcuts, so you can also use it if you want to select every cell in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, or to select everything on a slide in Microsoft Powerpoint.

Personally I almost always use Ctrl + A to select the content in an entire document because it’s something that I became accustomed to with a job where I spent most of my day in Excel.

While choosing to select text manually, or from the options in the Editing group, are also effective, the option to press Ctrl and another letter just seemed faster, and it really helped me to improve my efficiency in Microsoft Office applications.

Selecting everything in a document also makes it easy to cut or copy everything from the document to another location.

You can do this by either using the Cut and Copy options on the Home tab of the ribbon, by right-clicking the selected text and choosing the appropriate option there or with some other handy keyboard shortcuts.

The keyboard shortcut to Copy is Ctrl + C, and the keyboard shortcut to Cut is Ctrl + X. That content is then saved to your clipboard and can be pasted with the Paste keyboard shortcut of Ctrl + V.

One final keyboard shortcut that you may find useful involves selecting everything from the current position in the document until the end of the document.

If you press Ctrl + Shift + End it will highlight everything from wherever your cursor is currently located in the document until the end of the document.

Alternatively, you could select everything from the current position to the end of the line with just Shift + End. The End button is usually found in a grouping of keys to the right of the Backspace key and is typically found with keys like Insert, Delete, Home, Page Up, and Page Down.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Select All Microsoft Word Option

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has shown you how to select all in Word, either by using the option in the ribbon, or the keyboard shortcut. This can be a very handy thing to know, and it can save you time and frustration when you need to make a change that will affect everything in your document.

Additional Sources

• How to insert a check mark in Microsoft Word
• How to do small caps in Microsoft Word
• How to center text in Microsoft Word
• How to merge cells in Microsoft Word tables
• How to insert a square root symbol in Microsoft Word

In this article I will explain how you can use VBA for word to select text.

–

Select Entire Document:

Using the code snippet below you can select the entire word document:

Selection.WholeStory


Result:

–

Select The Current Line:

Using the code below you can select the current line:

Sub main()
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdLine
Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdLine, Extend:=wdExtend
End Sub


 Assume the cursor is somewhere in the middle of the line:

The first line moves the cursor to the start of the line:

Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdLine


The next line move the cursor to the end of the line while selecting the text:

Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdLine, Extend:=wdExtend


Result:

–

Select to End of Line:

The code below will only select till the end of the line:

Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdLine, Extend:=wdExtend


Result:

–

Select to Start of Line:

The code below will select text up to the start of the line:

Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdLine, Extend:=wdExtend


Result:

–

Select Certain Number of Characters:

Lets say we need to select only a certain number of characters from the current location of the cursor. The code below will select 5 characters to the right:

Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=5, Extend:=wdExtend


Result:

The code below will select 10 characters to the left:

Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=10, Extend:=wdExtend


Result:

–

Select Text up to a Certain Character:

You might want to select text until you reach a certain character. For example a space character, “*”, “/”, …

The code below selects text until a space character is reached:

Sub test()
Dim flag As Boolean
flag = True
While flag = True
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, _
    Extend:=wdExtend
    'checks the last character to see if its a space
    If Strings.Right(Selection.Range.Text, 1) = " " Then
        'if it was a space the loop flag will end
        flag = False
    End If
Wend
End Sub


Result:

The line below selects one additional character to the right:

Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, _
Extend:=wdExtend


 The if statement below checks to see if the last character selected is a space character:

If Strings.Right(Selection.Range.Text, 1) = " " Then
...
End If


For more information about the Strings.Right function please see the article below. Although the article was written for Excel, it can be extended to VBA for Word:

• Excel VBA String Proccessing and Manipulation

See also:

• Word VBA, Move Cursor to Start of Document
• Word VBA, Move Cursor to End of Document
• Word VBA, Move Cursor to End of Line
• Word VBA, Move Cursor to Start of Line
• Excel VBA String Processing and Manipulation
• Word VBA Bookmarks
• Word VBA, Read All Lines

If you need assistance with your code, or you are looking for a VBA programmer to hire feel free to contact me. Also please visit my website  www.software-solutions-online.com