Non-fiction Keyboard Shortcuts

Some aspects of non-fiction just don’t apply to fiction, and we’re going to address a few of those, along with their keyboard shortcuts. Although some fiction books may have a Table of Contents or even an Index, most do not. On the other hand, almost all non-fiction books have both. It’s a way for the reader to find the specific information needed. Other than building up a TOC with Heading styles, you can mark selected text to appear in either the TOC or the Index (or in a Table of Authorities).

Table of Contents

  • Mark table of contents entry – Alt-Shift-O
  • Mark index entry – Alt-Shift-X
  • Mark table of authorities entry (citation) – Alt-Shift-I

Along with your bibliography, you’ll want to have explanatory notes for some sections. Footnotes and Endnotes are perfect for that. Footnotes will move to the bottom of the page where they are referenced as you make changes to the text. Endnotes will appear the end of chapters (with section breaks), also moving around as needed.

  • Insert footnote – Ctrl-Alt-F
  • Insert endnote – Ctrl-Alt-D

Fields

Using fields is definitely an Excessive topic level. Few will need them, but those that do will enjoy the capabilities they afford. You can have fields that automatically show the correct page numbers of figures, tables, and other sections of text, despite rearranging everything all around. Here we will introduce only a few field shortcuts. We will cover how to use them later.

  • Insert empty field – Ctrl-F9
  • Update selected field – F9
  • Update all fields – Ctrl-A, F9
  • Switch between selected field code and result – Shift-F9
  • Switch between all field codes and results – Alt-F9
  • Go to next field – F11 or – Alt-F1
  • Go to previous field – Shift-F11 or Alt-Shift-F1
  • Open Bookmark Dialogue Box – Ctrl-Shift-F5 (set bookmark to reference later)
  • Insert PAGE field – Alt-Shift-P (shows current page number)
  • Insert LISTNUM field – Ctrl-Alt-L (increments a list count)
  • Insert DATE field – Alt-Shift-D (updates to show current date)
  • Insert TIME field – Alt-Shift-T (updates to show current time)
  • Lock field – Ctrl-F11 (prevent field from updating)
  • Unlock field – Ctrl-Shift-F11 (allow field to update)
  • Unlink field – Ctrl-Shift-F9 (remove field and replace with field value)

One point about Bookmarks: If you select hyperlink when you create references to them, then readers of electronic copies of your document will be able to click on them and be taken to the bookmark’s location. That would be true of web pages, PDFs, and your original Word document.

We’ll leave off with this list for now, although there are a few more shortcuts we’ll check on later…those that apply only in Tables or Outline View.