The greatest time-saver I’ve found for editing is a little-known technique: mouse-less editing. To me, this is as essential to an editor as touch typing is to a writer.
Although using shortcuts to save a second two at a time might seem a little underwhelming at first, its true potential blooms when viewing it at scale.
For example, if every shortcut saves around 5 seconds, then editors can save an hour and 20 minutes over the course of 1,000 edits — a more than realistic figure for a particularly troublesome piece. A day’s worth of work can be saved within 6,000 edits.
Editors are traditionally time-poor, often working to tight deadlines. As such, any tool that can save them time is a welcome addition.
With that in mind, here’s a list of shortcuts and techniques that can help editors — and even writers — be as efficient as possible.
| This guide was specifically created for editors working within Google Documents on Windows-based computers. However, much of what’s discussed here can be used in other text editing programs such as Microsoft Word. We’ve highlighted shortcuts that are either used across multiple apps or Gdocs specifically. |
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