Tip of the week # 589
23 November 2019

Keyboard shortcut to move rows in a table (Microsoft Word) ^*

Yesterday, Friday 22 November, the fabulous Moller Centre in Cambridge held another event for PAs and EAs. Once again I was invited as a guest speaker to share my time-saving Microsoft Office shortcuts and tips with the attendees.

One of the shortcuts I shared was ALT + SHIFT + UP ARROW and ALT + SHIFT + DOWN ARROW in order to quickly move bullet points up and down in PowerPoint. When I mentioned this also works to move paragraphs in Word, one of the delegates told me she uses it to move rows around in a table.

Here's how:

1. Click anywhere in the row you want to move or select multiple rows.
2. To move rows up, click ALT + SHIFT + UP ARROW or to move rows down, click ALT + SHIFT + DOWN ARROW.

You can even use it to move the rows out of the table. Simply keep pressing the keyboard combination and the selected rows will become the first rows of a new table.

With thanks to the delegate, whose name I forgot. Sorry. (Was it Carol?!)

By the way, if you want to organise a similar, one hour session for your colleagues in your office, drop me a line.

Related tips

Move text or bullet points with a single keyboard shortcut (Word and PowerPoint) - tip_308.php

^* Unless stated otherwise, these tips were written for Microsoft Office 2010.