I have a lot of fonts on my system, so my font selection box in Word is very long. I end up doing quite a bit of scrolling to find the font I want. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. In Word, you can set up a keyboard shortcut so you can apply a font with just a keystroke.
For example, I lay out many of our books using a font called Warnock Pro, and I often want letters and other collateral materials to be formatted using the same font, so they match. Scrolling down to Warnock Pro is kind of a drag since it starts with W. One quick trick you can use is to click the down arrow next to fonts on the Formatting toolbar, so it pops down. Then type the letter of the font name (W in this case). Word jumps your cursor down to the Ws.
Although this trick works okay, a keyboard shortcut is still much quicker because I have many versions of Warnock on my system (Warnock Pro Caption, Warnock Pro Display, etc.). Typing the letter only takes you to the first font name that starts with the letter. Plus, if you’ve selected a "w" font recently, Word places it at the top, so you have to resort to scrolling down to find the rest of your Ws if you want a different version.
Here’s how you set up the keyboard shortcut:
1. Choose Tools|Customize and click the Commands tab.
2. Click the Keyboard button
3. Look under Categories and then click Fonts.
4. In the Fonts area, find the font you want (Warnock Pro in my case).
5. Next to Press New Shortcut key, type a key combination you want to use for the shortcut (I used Alt+W). If the keyboard shortcut has already been assigned to something, Word will warn you. (It’s not a good idea to overwrite any default shortcut that you might want to use later.)
6. Click Assign and then Close the dialog boxes.
Now, when I want to change the font to Warnock Pro, I just highlight the text and press Alt+W. It’s easy!