Highlight Text Vertically Down a Page

Of course it’s easy to highlight data both horizontally and vertically in Excel. But is there a way to do it in Word? It certainly would be handy.

Yes, you can cut, copy or reformat vertical columns of text. (see screenshot below). Think of the letters in Word as appearing in two dimensions—as a horizontal row (which is how we traditionally think of it) and as a vertical column lined up one above the other. To highlight a vertical column of letters, hold down the Alt key and place your cursor at either the top of the column you want to highlight or the bottom. Then move the cursor in the direction you want the text highlighted. It’s that simple.