Three keyboard shortcuts for fixing your text bloopers

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We all make mistakes while we’re typing text on our websites—in sentences, headings, and form fields. There are a few keyboard shortcuts that are handy to know about to remove text quickly. These shortcuts also work for correcting text in social media posts, documents, emails, and other online communications.

Method 1: Undo everything you’ve just typed

I use the keyboard shortcut for Undo all the time…especially if I’m typing too fast and have made several typos in a line of text. When you’ve really messed something up in a paragraph, a sentence, or a field, the quickest way to do it all over is to use the Undo keyboard shortcut.

Windows: Undo all (CTRL+z)

After you realize you need to stop and undo what you’ve just typed, hold down the CTRL key and while holding the key down, press the z key. Whatever you typed in the last batch of text is removed.

Mac: Undo all (Command+z)

After you realize you need to stop and undo what you’ve just typed, hold down the Command ⌘ key and while holding the key down, press the z key. Whatever you typed in the last batch of text is removed.

Method 2: Remove the character to the left

Use this method to remove the last character you typed when you realize right away that you’ve typed an incorrect character and want to remove it to type the correct character. You can also use this technique if you see an error in a sentence. First place the cursor directly after the incorrect character, then remove the character to the left.

Windows: Delete character to the left (Backspace key)

With the cursor to the right of the character you want to remove, press the Backspace key once to remove the character to the left of the cursor. If you want to remove more than one character, press Backspace again to keep removing each additional character to the left.

Mac: Delete character to the left (Delete key)

With the cursor to the right of the character you want to remove, press the Delete key once to remove the character to the left of the cursor. If you want to remove more than one character, press Delete again to keep removing each additional character to the left.

Method 3: Remove the character to the right

Use this method to remove a character to the right of your cursor. First place the cursor directly before the incorrect character, then remove the character to the right.

Windows: Delete character to the right (Delete key)

With the cursor to the left of the character you want to remove, press the Delete key once to remove the character to the right of the cursor. If you want to remove more than one character, press the Delete key for each additional character you want to remove to the right.

Mac: Delete character to the right (Function+Delete key)

With the cursor to the left of the character you want to remove, hold down the Function (fn) key and while holding the key down, press the Delete key once to remove the character to the right of the cursor. If you want to remove more than one character, continue to hold down the Function key and press the Delete key for each additional character you want to remove to the right.

The world wants to know what you have to say, so keeping your words free of typos makes it easier to understand and read. Recovering quickly from typing bloopers with these keyboard shortcuts will help keep your hands on the keyboard. That means you can continue typing efficiently to keep the flow of your writing going.

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