Go into some text box anywhere on a computer and type some stuff and then press
Ctrl-Backspace. It deletes the entire previous word! This is much faster than repeatedly
pressing backspace or holding it down when making corrections.
Now try Ctrl + left/right arrow keys. This moves the cursor one whole word at a time in any
direction. If you hold SHIFT while doing this, it will highlight the words. Once
something is highlighted, you can just type a replacement, or you can change the size or
font or anything. It’s really nice to do this on the keyboard without reaching for the
mouse because keyboards are more expressive than mice, and faster.
Here’s a whole list of similar text-editing shortcuts:
| Effect | Windows/Linux | macOS |
|---|---|---|
| Delete previous entire word | Ctrl-Backspace |
Option-Delete |
| Delete next entire word | Ctrl-Delete |
Function-Delete |
| Move cursor to previous or next word | Ctrl-LEFT, Ctrl-RIGHT |
Option-LEFT, Option-RIGHT |
| Move cursor to beginning of line | Home |
Ctrl-A |
| Move cursor to end of line | End |
Ctrl-E |
| Move cursor to beginning of document | Ctrl-Home |
Command-Up |
| Move cursor to end of document | Ctrl-End |
Command-Down |
Enjoy that new superpower!
If you work with text a whole lot and want to heavily invest in borderline magical ways of editing text, check out the power-house text editors vim and emacs.