Suppose you want to select all text in Notepad, place the cursor anywhere in the document and hit Ctrl+A to quickly select the entire text, and then perform whichever action you want to.

How to select all words in Word using the keyboard shortcut To select all text in Word using the shortcut, press the Ctrl + A keys together and the entire text in the document will be selected.

Clicking and dragging is a perfectly good way to select text, but there are others, possibly better, ways to go about it.

Of course, you should know your regular Cmd + Z to undo whatever you just typed or pasted. For copying text, you’ll also want to remember Cmd + A to select all text or items in a document or folder.