Software Shortcuts and Quick Wins
This resource library's Writing Tools section covers Scrivener, Atticus, Vellum, and other major author software in genuine depth. This article is intentionally lighter: a quick-reference collection of keyboard shortcuts and small habits that save real, cumulative time across a writing session, without re-explaining what each tool does or how to set it up.
Scrivener Shortcuts Worth Memorizing
Scrivener's full shortcut list runs well over a hundred entries, and the program allows full customization of any shortcut through its Keyboard preferences. The handful above are the ones most frequently cited by experienced Scrivener users as genuinely changing daily workflow, worth committing to memory even if the rest stay as a reference you look up occasionally.
Microsoft Word Shortcuts Authors Actually Use
Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V — copy formatting from one piece of text and apply it ("paint") onto another, faster than manually rebuilding a heading or style match by hand
Ctrl+Enter — insert a page break instantly, the correct way to start a new chapter on a fresh page rather than pressing Enter repeatedly to push text down, which breaks formatting the moment any earlier text changes length
Ctrl+Shift+8 — toggle the display of paragraph marks and formatting symbols, invaluable for diagnosing a formatting problem (an extra paragraph break, a stray tab) that isn't otherwise visible
Alt+Ctrl+C — insert the copyright symbol; Alt+Ctrl+T inserts the trademark symbol, both useful when building out a copyright page or pen-name branding without hunting through the symbol menu
F7 — run spell check immediately from anywhere in the document, faster than navigating through the Review ribbon
Small Habits That Add Up
Use Find and Replace (Ctrl+H in most Windows programs, Cmd+Option+F in many Mac apps) for any repeated correction across a full manuscript, a misspelled character name, an inconsistent term, rather than manually scrolling and fixing each instance
Build a personal text-expansion habit using built-in autocorrect or replacement features (available in Word, and through system-level text replacement on both Windows and Mac) for anything you type often: your pen name's full copyright line, a standard back-matter blurb, or a frequently repeated character name with an unusual spelling
Save versioned backups at meaningful milestones, not just relying on autosave, since autosave protects against a crash but not against realizing three chapters later that an earlier version was actually better
Learn your formatting tool's style system (Scrivener's Styles, Word's Styles pane, Vellum and Atticus's built-in formatting presets) rather than manually formatting each heading or block quote by hand — a consistent style applied through the tool's style system updates everywhere at once if you change your mind later, while manual formatting has to be redone one instance at a time
Conclusion
None of these shortcuts are individually transformative, but together they remove dozens of small frictions from a writing and editing session, the kind of cumulative time savings that experienced authors take for granted and new authors usually have to discover by accident. For full setup and feature guidance on any of the tools mentioned here, see this resource library's dedicated Writing Tools section.
- Randall