The biggest feature which each one of us loves is the option to undo the changes be it documents or drawing applications or even file management. And using CTRL+Z keyboard shortcut is what we enjoy more than typing, right? Sounds right, until it does what it is expected to do.Recently, while working with MS Word, I came across a strange situation where I wasn't able to undo any changes using CTRL+Z keyboard shortcut. However, the undo button worked just fine without any complaints. Initially it sounded like a very peculiar & a minor issue but it kept bugging me each time I worked on a document.
Obviously, the issue was with the keyboard shortcut configuration and tweaking the same appeared to be the best option. As an alternative, though not the best option, would be to overwrite the Normal.dotm file with a fresh one but that would reset any of your other customizations that you would like to retain. Normal.dotm is the default Word file that is used as a template whenever you create a new document in Word.
Follow these quick simple steps to restore or reassign the keyboard shortcuts —
- Click on the Office button which is located at the top left of the screen.
- From the menu that displays, Click on the button labeled Word Options.
- In the dialog box, click on the Customize button that is located to the left side.
- Look for the section Keyboard shortcuts and click the button labeled Customize to display Customize Keyboard dialog box.
- You will find two lists here, Categories and Commands.
- Selecting All Commands from the Categories list will display all the available commands.
- Now select the command that you would want to change the keyboard shortcut of. I selected EditUndo as I wanted to restore the shortcut for the undo command.
- Upon selecting a command, the dialog box will display the currently assigned keyboard (often the default one) shortcut in the section titled Current Keys. In my case, it was displaying ALT+BACKSPACE.
- And in order to assign a new shortcut key combination, just click inside the text field labeled Press new shortcut key.
- Then simply use the new shortcut key and it will be displayed in the text field. I used CTRL+Z as the new shortcut key for the undo command.
- Ensure that Normal.dotm option is selected in the list titled Save changes in. This will save the changes you have introduced as global settings and the same will be available in all the documents that you create henceforth.
- Then click Close to save these settings.
- Click on the OK button in the Word Options dialog box to return to your document.
