Selecting Text Vertically with ALT-drag!

August 29th, 2005

First, you are probably asking yourself, “What does he mean by selecting text vertically?’

Answer: Selecting text vertically allows you to select the first character in every line of a document (or the first two characters, three, etc.) See the example below.

Now that you know what selecting text vertically is, you are probably asking yourself, “Why would I ever want to do this?”

Answer: While it’s possible that you may never have a need for this unique Word feature, if you ever do need it, you’ll be glad you know how.

I find it useful in two situations:

  1. I sometimes receive long back-and-forth emails from people containing several replies and replies to replies, and I need to delete the prefix character (usually a >) in front of several lines of text.
  2. I receive a text document that contains leading spaces on every line.

In these situations, I could write a Word macro or do a Find and Replace, but ALT-dragging is much easier (and much cooler).

Here’s how:

  1. If you are working with an email message, copy it into Word.
  2. Hold down the ALT key, hold down the left mouse button, and simply drag vertically.
  3. Here’s an example:

An example of ALT drag

Now you know how to ALT-drag!

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One Response to “Selecting Text Vertically with ALT-drag!”

  1. Pioneer Training » Blog Archives » Index Says:
    June 2nd, 2008 at 10:07 am

    […] Selecting Text Vertically […]

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