![Tip of the day shows text in different sizes and the keyboard shortcut CTRL + [ and CTRL + ]](https://www.businessbrains.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Make-text-smaller-bigger.jpg)
Let’s talk about text, baby. Let’s talk about Outlook, Word and PowerPoint, namely, because today’s keyboard shortcut works in all three. So let me give you the shortcut now and then I will tell you about something extremely odd in relation to this particular issue of font size.
Resize text with a shortcut in Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Outlook)
This is a two-finger tip:
1. Select some text in your favourite application (Outlook, Word and PowerPoint are your choices).
2. With one of your fingers
– press down firmly on the CTRL key,
3. let another finger hit one of these keys repeatedly until you achieve the desired effect:
– to make text smaller: [ (that’s a left square bracket)
– to make text bigger: ] (that’s a right square bracket)
You done good, now wash your hands before you eat because your keyboard looks filthy.
Something odd about shortcuts in Microosft Office!
Now here’s the weird thing. If you hover over the size buttons in PowerPoint, the shortcut is shown as CTRL + Shift + < or CTRL + Shift + >; and in Word, the shortcut is shown as CTRL + < or CTRL + > which, incidentally, doesn’t work (for me at least – does it work for you?)
Yet, the shortcut I gave you today works in all three applications without being listed in any of them. So which one are you going to commit to memory? Huh? Huh? Which one?
Good. Go and do some work now or leave a comment if you just need to look busy for a little while. 🙂
I originally enlarged the text on an email I was writing completely by accident. I hit the wrong keys and the text just got bigger. I looked on line to see what I had done, because I thought it would be useful, if I could repeat it in the future rather than highlighting the text and enlarging the font. I the other keystrokes you mentioned did not work for me either.
Thank you, I think this will be very useful.
Is it possible that you hit the zoom function and enlarged the text window instead of the font?
This happens on my trackpad if I use two fingers and move them apart, it increases the zoom.
I am using a HP laptop and the control key is right under the shift key. I was trying to enter a curly bracket into my message when the font size changed. It had never happened to me before, but it is good to know.
Thanks Again
Oh yes, of course! An accidental discovery! I had one of these where my keyboard layout was changing accidentally between different languages (I use three different locales!). It was annoying because I would type a ” (double quote) but end up with a @ (at sign). Eventually, I caught myself hitting WINDOWS + SPACEBAR which is very convenient when you actually mean to use it!
Thanks for your comments!
I have been using this shortcut for years and initially it worked fine on my new laptop, but for some strange reason it has stopped working. Did I change one of me settings without realising? I should add that I use both the QWERTY and AZERTY keyboards for my work as a language teacher.
The shortcuts still work for me, however I use the QWERTY layout with English (Ireland) as a locale for Windows. The AZERTY layout does complicate access to some keys.