Expert Word users know that the keyboard is faster than the mouse. While you can use the Ribbon to accomplish almost anything in Word, doing so involves taking your hand off the keyboard to move the mouse, wasting valuable time.

This month we show you how to change the case of text in your Word document without taking your hands off the keyboard.

Start by selecting/highlighting the text, and then go to the Home tab, Font group. Locate the drop‑down arrow to the right of the Change Case icon (the one with a capital letter “A” and a lower‑case letter “a” side by side) and click it, then choose one of five different cases. The cases you can apply are:

Sentence case. – Only the first word of each sentence is capitalized. This format assumes that there is at least one period somewhere within the text you’ve selected/highlighted.

lower case – Does not capitalize any text, regardless of punctuation.

UPPER CASE – Capitalizes all text, regardless of punctuati

on.

Capitalize Each Word – This format is sometimes referred to as Initial Caps. When you use this format, Word capitalizes every word, even “the,” “and,” “of,” and the like.

tOGGLE CASE – You can apply this format to fix things in the event that you accidentally turn on the Caps Lock key at the wrong time.

You also have the option of using a keyboard shortcut to change case. First, select / highlight the text, and then press Shift F3. (Hold the Shift key down and tap the F3 function key.) Keep pressing Shift F3 to cycle through the available cases.