Editing in Microsoft Word is essential as you may want to fix, move or add more text to information that was already typed. To go through this topic, we are going to call on the knowledge we gained from a previous lesson which taught us how our screen reader interprets cursor position to us as well as the lesson on selection. Let us go!
Inserting
Inserting is the process of inputting information at the point of the cursor. You would therefore have to understand where your cursor is, then you would type whatever it is you would like to add.
Let us go with an example. You typed the heading “Blind Tips” but then realize that you left out the word”Accessibility”. You know “Accessibility” should go in front of “Tips”. What do you do? Navigate to the line which has the phrase that you are looking for using your Up or Down arrows to go line by line. Then use the Left or Right arrow keys to navigate until your screen reader announces “T” which means that the cursor is infront of or to the left of the “T” in the word “Tips”. This is exactly where you want the word “Accessibility” to go so just start typing. Congratulations, you have inserted a word! Of course you can insert as many words or sentences as you like.
Deleting
In a previous lesson we looked at using the Delete key to get rid of unwanted material character by character. However, the Delete key coupled with your selection techniques can help you remove large patches of unwanted typed information at one time.
Example. You would like to delete an entire paragraph from your document. Firstly, select the paragraph. What is the keystroke for selecting a paragraph? Yes, just press CTRL+ Up or Down arrow to select the entire paragraph that you would like removed. Then hit Delete. Voila, the unwelcome paragraph disappears!
Copying and Moving
If you want to move text from one position to another or copy the text [meaning that the text stays in its original position and a copy is also placed in another position], you will have to learn how to use the process of cut, copy and paste.
Let us say you have a sentence in one place in your document but you would also like to put this same sentence elsewhere as well. The first thing you have to do is find that sentence and select it. You can select it by pressing CTRL + Left or Rightarrow to select it word by word. After that, press the keystroke CTRL + C to copy. You can also use the context menu which comes up with the pressing of the Applications key to find copy. Navigate to the next position where you want the text to also be placed. Upon reaching there, press CTRL + V or use the context menu to find paste. You would have successfully placed a copy of your sentence in this new position.
In a case where you would like to remove some text and place it in a completely different position, you would have to use cut and paste instead.
Example. Select the information that you want moved. Press the keystroke CTRL + X TO cut the text. Then head to the new position that you want the text to go and press CTRL + V to paste. Again, both cut and paste can also be found in the context menu. That is all it takes, the same text now has a new position.
Tip: I think the letter “X” looks like a scissors so it is not so far-fetched that CTRL + X is for cut. What do you think?
Take Away Keystrokes
| Keystroke | Function |
| CTRL + C | Copy |
| CTRL + X | Cut |
| CTRL + V | Paste |
| Applications key | Opens context menu |
