How to Create or Generate Keyboard Shortcuts for Microsoft Office

How to Create or Generate Keyboard Shortcuts for Microsoft Office.

A mouse is a handy tool, but mouse clicks are a waste of time. You knew this, so you’ve already explored the best keyboard shortcuts for Office and Windows.

But maybe there are no hotkeys for some repetitive tasks. Wouldn’t it be great if you could create your own keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Office? Well, you can.

How to Create Keyboard Shortcuts in Microsoft Office

Let’s take a look at these steps in Word first. The steps are identical in Excel and PowerPoint on the desktop. Scroll down to see how to do this in Outlook.

Right-click any gray space in the ribbon area and choose to

Customize Ribbon.

The Word Options window opens. Select “Customize” next to “Keyboard shortcuts” at the bottom of the window.

The keyboard configuration window will open. Find the tab in the Categories area that contains the command for which you want to create a shortcut. The commands on this tab will appear in the Commands area on the right. Select the command you want.In this example, we chose FileSendPdf as it would be very helpful to send a Word document in PDF format with a simple keyboard shortcut. If the command already has a keyboard shortcut, it appears in the Current Keys area.

To set a new keyboard shortcut, place the cursor in the Press New Keyboard Shortcut box and then press the shortcut you want to use on your keyboard. Notice what appears in the Current Keys area next to the Currently Assigned field. If it displays anything other than [unassigned], try a different keyboard shortcut.

To use this keyboard shortcut for all future documents, leave the Normal.dot selected in the Save changes to box. To apply the keyboard shortcut only to this document, select it from the drop-down list.
Click the Assign button to apply the settings, then close the Keyboard Settings window. Click OK to close the Word Options window. Try a new keyboard shortcut.

The FileSendPdf shortcut automatically converts the document to PDF, creates a new email message in Outlook, attaches the PDF file, and assigns a subject to the email. One keystroke instead of a dozen or more mouse clicks can save you a lot of time.

How to Clear Custom Keyboard Shortcuts in Microsoft Office

You might want to get rid of all the custom keyboard shortcuts you used in your Office application. It’s easy to do.

Right-click any gray space in the ribbon area and choose to Customize Ribbon.

The Word Options window opens. Click the Customize button in the lower-left corner of the window. The Customize Keyboard window opens.

To remove keybindings from all future documents, leave Normal. dot m selected in the Save changes to the drop-down list. To remove them only from this document, select the document from the drop-down list. In the lower-left corner, click the “Reset All” button.

It will ask: do you really want to reset the key assignments? This action will remove all keys currently assigned to macros and styles in the Normal. dot. Note that either Normal. dot or the document you selected will be displayed at the end of this warning. Select “Yes” to confirm the reset.

How to Create Keyboard Shortcuts in Microsoft Outlook

Of all the Microsoft Office applications, Outlook is probably the one you spend the most time in. It makes sense to create some custom keyboard shortcuts to get things done faster.

Unfortunately, starting with Outlook 2016, it does not allow creating keyboard shortcuts as we do in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. So what options do you have?

This is a workaround, but you can create quick actions and assign keyboard shortcuts to them. This will not give you the ability to create a keyboard shortcut for everything in Outlook, but it might suit most of your needs. A maximum of nine keyboard shortcuts can be assigned to custom quick actions.

Select New from the Quick Steps section of the Home tab in Outlook.

The quick edit window will open. Enter a descriptive name in the Name field.
Choose one of the predefined actions from the Select Action drop-down menu. For this example, check “Mark as read”.

Chain the activities by clicking the Add Activity button below the previous activity.

Select Move to Folder.

A folder selection window will open. Find and select the folder where you want this quick action to move the email. For this example, select the Bills folder. Click “OK” to close the window.

Select a keyboard shortcut from the Keyboard Shortcut drop-down list. Please note that the selection is limited to nine.

Add a description of what Quick Step does in the Tooltip text box. When you hover over a Quick Step later, it will remind you of what it is doing.
Click Finish to complete the quick step. You will now see the Mark as Read quick action to navigate to invoices in the Outlook ribbon. Test it using the keyboard shortcut you chose in step 7.

If you want to go further, you can create shortcuts on the Outlook desktop using command line switches to make common tasks easier.

Practice Your Keyboard Shortcuts

Now you can create your own keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Office. Print a list of the most commonly used labels and keep them near your monitor. After a few days, you will no longer need the cheat sheet. Add shortcuts to command-line switches to instantly increase your productivity with Microsoft Office.

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