Punctuation and Keyboard Shortcuts

Correct formatting of dashes, full stops and commas is essential for the text’s clarity and visual appearance. For correct formatting, the following steps should be followed:

• A hyphen is written between prefixes and words or compound words (e.g. check-in).
• A dash replaces the word until and is written between the numbers without a space (7th-9th grades) or between groups of words. You can dash with Alt + 0150 (Win) or Alt + hyphen key (Mac). A long dash can usually be made using the hotkeys on a full-size keyboard on top of the numeric part of the keyboard. This method may not work on a laptop keyboard.
• There is always a space after the comma and the period (not before)!
• The key combination Ctrl + Shift + Space holds together the number and the following word. This combination also does not create an automatic capital letter after the period of the following number (e.g. 1984).

GOOD TO KNOW!
To make it easier for you to write your work, it is a good idea to learn and use the following shortcut key combinations:

Ctrl + A – select all
Ctrl + X – cut
Ctrl + C – copy
Ctrl + V – paste
Ctrl + B (Ctrl + N in Estonian Word) – bold text
Ctrl + U – underlined text
Ctrl + I – italics
Ctrl + Z – undo the operation
Ctrl + S – saves the document
Ctrl + D – delete and send to trash

Ctrl + right arrow – moves the cursor to the beginning of the next word
Ctrl + left arrow – moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous word
Ctrl + down arrow – moves the cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph
Ctrl + up arrow – moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous paragraph

Ctrl+Shift+Space – Holds the number with the following word and does not allow a capital letter to occur.

Alt + 1050 (Mac Alt + hyphen) – creates a long dash.

You can find more keyboard shortcut combinations for use in the Windows operating system and Microsoft Office programs on the Microsoft website. (Microsoft, 2024)