Easiest way to customize keyboard shortcuts

The usual method to customize the keyboard shortcuts in MS Office Word is to go to File --> Options --> Customize Ribbon --> Customize button after the label "Keyboard shortcuts:".Then one has to choose the category in which the command exists and then the command within the category!
See the Video below:

Look also into this article for details on this method

There is an easier and more intuitive way for doing the same.

1) Press Ctrl + Alt + the plus key on number pad.
     If you do not have an extra number pad, i.e. when you are working on a laptop: try to use the Fn key alsong with the "plus" key in the same color as the Fn key! 
If this did not work, find if the numlock is set or not and then try the Fn key once again.

2) If step 1) works, then you should see the loop squared symbol (⌘, U+2318) in place of the usual arrow point!
     This symbol is called by many names, but has the Unicode character called PLACE OF INTEREST SIGN, more here

3) Now, you can simply move the loop sqaured symbol freely to any button on the ribbon and click to open a customize window where you could define a new short cut to this command and then assign the newly defined shortcut!

$) Thats it! 

Difference between Enter and Shift + Enter in Microsoft Word

Pressing Enter in MS-Word while typing will usually give you a new paragraph. This can be visualised by touching the Show/Hide hidden formatting symbols button in the HOME tab. This is the button which looks like an inverted P.

This is also shown with the star mark in the figure above.

If you want to start a new paragraph, it is fine to press ENTER and be done with it, but what if you only want to start a new line and not a new paragraph??

What is the difference you ask, look at the picture below:

As you can see above the difference between starting a paragraph and starting a new line is the amount of spacing!

Use SHIFT +ENTER to create a new line, and the symbol for the new line is the symbol on your Enter key.

This is called the line break symbol and the inverted P symbol is the paragraph mark or the Pilcrow.
Within a long paragraph the Word automatically introduces linebreaks depending on the page size, font size, and justification settings.

My feelings about MS-Word

--- Microsoft Word is a very useful tool --- a statement that many might envision themselves nodding thier heads to, but I am unfortunately not one among them. This is because I am in a field where equations, and pictures take the lions share in any document that we create. And for me personally, the preferred is LaTeX.

That being said, I make also a lot of reporting and documentation for projects that involve one or more companies. This is where I have to use MS-Word since the company templates or the project templates are all in Word.

Through this blog I wish to share some of the experienecs that I made with MS-Word in the hope that it might help you.