Keyboard strokes for menu commands

[cdaniels]

I'm thinking about switching from a PC to a MacBook but wanted to find
out whether the keyboard could be used to access menu commands in
Microsoft Word for the Mac. (I couldn't do it a few months ago at one
of the retail stores on one of the PowerBooks.)
Thanks

 

[picardmeister]

You sort of can. You can hit Ctrl-F2 to get to the menu bar and then
use the arrow keys or type letters.

The behavior is a little goofy when you have multiple menu items
starting w/the same letter. To get to Tools, you have to do Ctrl-F2
to. If you want to get to Tools > Thesaurus, you'd do Ctrl-F2 to
<return> th <return>.

You can also assign keyboard shortcuts to menu items that have none
defined via this trick http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/keyboard.html.

 

[Clive Huggan]

Picard has answered your question as well as anyone will in relation to the
Alt key + [whatever] that is shown against all menus in Windows. I wish the
Mac had this.

For a discussion of the differences between the PC and Mac in Word,
including default keyboard shortcuts, do a Find command successively for
"PC", then "Windows", then "keyboard shortcuts" in some notes on the way I
use Word for the Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will", which are available
as a free download from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Once you get used to Command-x etc instead of Control-x etc for the most
frequent commands, it's easy going. But as Picard says, you can configure
Word as you wish (I discuss this in "Bend Word to Your Will" as well).

By the way, Tools menu => Options in PC = Word menu => Preferences in Mac
(this is covered too in "Bend Word to Your Will").

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
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[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

In addition to what the others have said, you probably don't want to access
"ALL" the menus from the keyboard, just your favourites.

You can assign your own preferred keystrokes (including most of the PC ones)
to specific commands in Word on the Mac, as you can on the PC.

But before you begin, read the Mac help carefully about customising
keystrokes, and specifically, learn how to turn off the system keystrokes.
Apple OS X captures many of the default keystrokes assigned by Word. Until
you disable that, many of your favourites won't work

Cheers

I'm thinking about switching from a PC to a MacBook but wanted to find
out whether the keyboard could be used to access menu commands in
Microsoft Word for the Mac. (I couldn't do it a few months ago at one
of the retail stores on one of the PowerBooks.)
Thanks

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Clive Huggan]

Ah! Thanks, John, I was in a rush and should have mentioned that. I discuss
the various hijacked commands in "Bend Word to Your Will" ­ for example on
page 21 there is an article titled 'Work-arounds for F9'.

You can compile a document of all keyboard commands by doing the following:
Tools menu > Macro > Macros > pop down the "Macros in:" menu to Word
Commands > scroll down the list until you see ListCommands, then Run > click
Current menu and keyboard settings > OK. By doing the same on a PC, you get
the PC list.

Clive Huggan
============

 

[Elliott Roper]

You sort of can. You can hit Ctrl-F2 to get to the menu bar and then
use the arrow keys or type letters.

The behavior is a little goofy when you have multiple menu items
starting w/the same letter. To get to Tools, you have to do Ctrl-F2
to. If you want to get to Tools > Thesaurus, you'd do Ctrl-F2 to
<return> th <return>.

You can also assign keyboard shortcuts to menu items that have none
defined via this trick http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/keyboard.html.

That's good advice. I found that reassigning all those F-mumble things
in system preferences» keyboard to ctrl-some letter you can remember
works really well. I use ctrl-M to get to the main menu then proceed as
above. It is a great way to remind yourself of the real shortcuts in
many programs, or even a half decent way of never having tto learn the
esoteric ones.
I do keep ctrl-F1 for disabling and re-enabling the keyboard menu nav
when using programs that have shortcuts that conflict with the system
ones, like Emacs and Excel. e.g. I use ^D to unhide the dock, except
when in Excel, where it is the natural shortcut for fill down.

 

[Clive Huggan]

That's good advice. I found that reassigning all those F-mumble things
in system preferences» keyboard to ctrl-some letter you can remember
works really well. I use ctrl-M to get to the main menu then proceed as
above. It is a great way to remind yourself of the real shortcuts in
many programs, or even a half decent way of never having tto learn the
esoteric ones.
I do keep ctrl-F1 for disabling and re-enabling the keyboard menu nav
when using programs that have shortcuts that conflict with the system
ones, like Emacs and Excel. e.g. I use ^D to unhide the dock, except
when in Excel, where it is the natural shortcut for fill down.

Thanks, Elliott. I know that you prefer to keep all menus out of the way,
but I don't yet understand "I use ctrl-M to get to the main menu then
proceed as above" and "I do keep ctrl-F1 for disabling and re-enabling the
keyboard menu nav". Could you elaborate, please?

Cheers,

Clive
======

 

[Elliott Roper]

Thanks, Elliott. I know that you prefer to keep all menus out of the way,
but I don't yet understand "I use ctrl-M to get to the main menu then
proceed as above" and "I do keep ctrl-F1 for disabling and re-enabling the
keyboard menu nav". Could you elaborate, please?

Sure. It is nothing to do with Word, except that it is very useful
there as elsewhere. (This will turn into a keyboard nav sermon. I hope
you enjoy it)

System Prefs » Keyboard & Mouse » Keyboard Shortcuts tab
Go to the Keyboard navigation triangle and turn it down. In there you
will 11 operations with checkboxes and default ^F-mumble shortcuts.

I based mine on a set that was offered in Panther I think, but is no
longer an option in Tiger. Here's what I use:-

Turn Full keyboard access on or off: ^F1 (that gets full keyboard
access out of the road in emacs and Excel)

Move focus to the menu bar: ^M (that is where the magic starts
happening) I use it all the time in Word to avoid cluttering the screen
with toolbars and my tiny brain with shortcuts. e.g. while writing this
post I wanted to check what Word did with a particular shortcut. It
went like this:
cmd-tab-tab-tab to get focus on word
^M to down cu right down down return to bring up the customize keyboard
panel
tab tab tab tab to bring up the "press new short cut key"
cmd-opt-t (to discover that Word has that assigned to "TableSelectTable"
esc to get the hell out of there without changing anything
and cmd-tab to get me right back here in Thoth
Move focus to the dock: ^D ( I run with the dock hidden, so ^D, a
glissiando with the arrows, and I'm running one of my faves)

Move focus to the active window or next window: ^W That is how I
rummage through the on-screen litter that is my working day. Word is
evil with that. Even though it is an unassigned shortcut, it swallows
^W and won't let me move on.

Move focus to the window toolbar: ^B Since I'm a toolbarphobe, that is
there for completeness, and does nothing in Word. It actually toggles
the toolbars on Cocoa apps, so I *do* use it to turn the snivellers off
if they ever should appear.

Move focus to the floating window: ^U That seems to work only for Cocoa
floaters, and is pretty useless, since there are few keyboard shortcuts
once you get there.

Move focus to the next window in active application: cmd-' This one is
there whether you have keyboard nav off or on. It is the ideal
companion of ^W and cmd-tab. Rummaging tools par excellence.

Move between controls or text boxes and lists: ^F7 I left that alone,
since it is rather esoteric. Useful for keyboard nav in panels and
stuff and not much else. It does what it says on the bottom of this
panel.

Move focus to the window drawer: cmd-opt-' That is no use in Word, and
not much in the cocoa apps I use either, since if the window drawer is
usefule, it usually has its own shortcut ot tabbing works just as
easily (e.g. mail)

Move focus to status menus in the menu bar: ^F8 I really should get a
new name for that, it is quite useful. It does the same job as ^M but
for all the prettiness to the right like the connection settings and
scripts buttons.

Show hide the character palette: cmd-opt-t It is amazing how many
applications snaffle that shortcut. It hardly ever works so I left it
alone.

A couple of other tricks:
esc: to get off panels or menus without doing anything

Combine shift with just about anything to go in the opposite direction.
That is very useful if you are swapping between two windows or
applications when you have dozens on screen.

 

[Clive Huggan]

Sure. It is nothing to do with Word, except that it is very useful
there as elsewhere. (This will turn into a keyboard nav sermon. I hope
you enjoy it)

System Prefs » Keyboard & Mouse » Keyboard Shortcuts tab
Go to the Keyboard navigation triangle and turn it down. In there you
will 11 operations with checkboxes and default ^F-mumble shortcuts.

I based mine on a set that was offered in Panther I think, but is no
longer an option in Tiger. Here's what I use:-

Turn Full keyboard access on or off: ^F1 (that gets full keyboard
access out of the road in emacs and Excel)

Move focus to the menu bar: ^M (that is where the magic starts
happening) I use it all the time in Word to avoid cluttering the screen
with toolbars and my tiny brain with shortcuts. e.g. while writing this
post I wanted to check what Word did with a particular shortcut. It
went like this:
cmd-tab-tab-tab to get focus on word
^M to down cu right down down return to bring up the customize keyboard
panel
tab tab tab tab to bring up the "press new short cut key"
cmd-opt-t (to discover that Word has that assigned to "TableSelectTable"
esc to get the hell out of there without changing anything
and cmd-tab to get me right back here in Thoth
Move focus to the dock: ^D ( I run with the dock hidden, so ^D, a
glissiando with the arrows, and I'm running one of my faves)

Move focus to the active window or next window: ^W That is how I
rummage through the on-screen litter that is my working day. Word is
evil with that. Even though it is an unassigned shortcut, it swallows
^W and won't let me move on.

Move focus to the window toolbar: ^B Since I'm a toolbarphobe, that is
there for completeness, and does nothing in Word. It actually toggles
the toolbars on Cocoa apps, so I *do* use it to turn the snivellers off
if they ever should appear.

Move focus to the floating window: ^U That seems to work only for Cocoa
floaters, and is pretty useless, since there are few keyboard shortcuts
once you get there.

Move focus to the next window in active application: cmd-' This one is
there whether you have keyboard nav off or on. It is the ideal
companion of ^W and cmd-tab. Rummaging tools par excellence.

Move between controls or text boxes and lists: ^F7 I left that alone,
since it is rather esoteric. Useful for keyboard nav in panels and
stuff and not much else. It does what it says on the bottom of this
panel.

Move focus to the window drawer: cmd-opt-' That is no use in Word, and
not much in the cocoa apps I use either, since if the window drawer is
usefule, it usually has its own shortcut ot tabbing works just as
easily (e.g. mail)

Move focus to status menus in the menu bar: ^F8 I really should get a
new name for that, it is quite useful. It does the same job as ^M but
for all the prettiness to the right like the connection settings and
scripts buttons.

Show hide the character palette: cmd-opt-t It is amazing how many
applications snaffle that shortcut. It hardly ever works so I left it
alone.

A couple of other tricks:
esc: to get off panels or menus without doing anything

Combine shift with just about anything to go in the opposite direction.
That is very useful if you are swapping between two windows or
applications when you have dozens on screen.

Thank you indeed, Elliott!

And as for that being a "nav sermon": the last sermon I heard in Britain was
about four years ago, delivered by a vicar who had been an RAF navigator.
But not since the famed St Barnabas's of Dibley have I listened so entranced
to what has come from the pulpit... ;-)

Cheers,
Clive
=======