Shift+Click
Shift+clickhighlights text or other objects by pressing the Shift key and clicking with the mouse.
Practice Shift-clicking
Below is a text box to practice highlighting text using the Shift and click method. Follow the steps below to highlight text using Shift+click.
- Click at the beginning of the text or where you want to start highlighting text.
- Hold down either Shift key on the keyboard.
- While pressing Shift, click at the end of the text or where you want to stop highlighting. If done correctly, all text between the two areas clicked becomes highlighted. For example, you could click before "Computer" and then hold down Shift and click after "Hope" to highlight "Computer Hope."
- Once the text is highlighted, you can let go of the Shift key.
To highlight more text after the highlighted text, press and hold Shift again and click further out to highlight even more text.
Once the text is highlighted, you can right-click the text to get additional options or use a keyboard shortcut to copy or cut the text.
Why does the Shift+click not work?
The Shift+click method of highlighting text or files works for PC, Mac, and Chromebook computers in any area that can be manipulated. For example, most of the text on this page cannot be changed and therefore doesn't work with Shift-click. However, the text in the textarea text box we used in the above example can be manipulated and lets you do a Shift-click.
Other uses of Shift+click
In addition to using Shift+click to highlight text, it can also be used to do the following.
Shift+click a Windows taskbar icon
Press Shift while clicking an icon in the Windows taskbar opens new instances of that program. For example, if you have a Microsoft Word document open and hold down Shift and click the Microsoft Word icon on the taskbar, it opens a new Word document.