Quickly delete entire words

I'm a big fan of keyboard shortcuts. And not only in AutoCAD LT, but in any program where I can use them. I especially like shortcuts in word processing programs, where both hands are on the keyboard the majority of the time anyway.

Sometimes I get to the end of typing a word or phrase and realize that it wasn't really what I meant to say after all. So to quickly erase what I've written, I use the handy keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Backspace to remove entire words at once. It's faster and more precise than backspacing one character at a time, since you don't have to guess about when to let up on the key. It also doesn't require me to take my hands off the keyboard, so I can get back to writing right away.

The companion to Ctrl+Backspace is Ctrl+Delete, which erases whole words to the right of the cursor instead.

My favorite thing about this tip is that it works in just about any program where you enter text -- Outlook, Word, Excel, Notepad, web browsers, and of course AutoCAD LT. (I've used it several times already composing this post in Firefox.)

What do you think? Do you have any other favorite universal keyboard shortcuts?

Comments

[Mark]

Since you're a 'big fan' of keyboard short-cuts and keeping both hands on the keyboard then I suggest you learn how to use Vim (www.vim.org). Sure, it has a learning curve but once you've 'got it' you will never use anything else, especially programs like Word. Not only that but you get a simple ACSII file that takes up less room and is compatible with almost every OS out there. You can even use it AutoCAD!

[Murray Clack]

Kate, I love you. Do you have any idea how long I've waited for a tip like this? I've been highlighting and deleting forever (and making mistakes), and now this trick comes along. THANKS!

As a thank-you, here is my contribution. While in the MText editor (or during any word-processing task), if you want to quickly jump from one word to another, simply hold down your Ctrl key, and then press either the Left or Right arrow keys to navigate.

I also like pressing Ctrl-Home to go to the beginning of the document, or Ctrl-End to get to the end quickly.

Thanks again!

[Murray Clack]

And here is another handy MText keyboard trick. Let's say you are typing along in the MText editor and you suddenly realize that you are 100 characters into typing everything in lowercase letters.

I've seen people press Esc. and then start typing all over again, and I've seen people use the TCASE command after the fact, but if you want to correct the error NOW, simply press Ctrl-A on your keyboard (to select ALL of the text), and then press Ctrl-Shift-U which will change all of the text from lowercase to UPPERcase (to change everything to lowercase, simply press Ctrl-Shift-L)

[Murray Clack]

Ooohhh... Ooohhh... I almost forgot.

Let's say you are cutting and pasting text into your current MText editing session, and it has a bunch funky formatting (eg. text from Word to AutoCAD). To get rid of the funky formatting, simply highlight the affected text, and then press Ctrl-SPACEBAR on your keyboard.

[Kevin]

If you delete too far, Alt-Backspace will put the words back one at a time.

[Chris McVey]

Hey, learn something new all the time.
I really should make sure to hit this blog daily, been so busy though.