2

I have some shapes that are very small. I can move these with the arrow keys, but resizing them does not seem to be possible (eg. with Shift-arrow or Ctrl-arrow).

The Keyboard shortcuts for working with shapes, text boxes, and WordArt online help does not mention anything either. (Note: The Keyboard shortcuts for SmartArt graphics help topic does mention Shift-arrow, but as I wrote, that does not work).

Even if I zoom, as soon as the width of the object becomes so small that the indicated vertical resize handle disappears, I no longer see a way to resize the shape vertically:

enter image description here enter image description here

Surely I can keep zooming and using the mouse, but I'm looking for a faster way that also resizes 'per pixel'.

hBy2Py
  • 2,233
  • 13
  • 28
Jan Doggen
  • 4,108
  • 10
  • 36
  • 51
  • You can use both handles on the corner to resize vertically too. I am not familiar with a keyboard combination for resizing, and I doubt it exists. – LPChip Jan 28 '15 at 11:09
  • Anybody knows how to do the same *(resizing using only keyboard by small increments) keeping the aspect ratio ? – Alexander Gelbukh Oct 09 '22 at 02:49
  • @AlexanderGelbukh Please make that a new question, referring to this one - very few people will see your comment here. – Jan Doggen Oct 09 '22 at 11:53

4 Answers4

2

In Word 2010 on Windows, as noted by K V, shapes can be resized using Shift+(arrow key) combinations:

  • Shift+→ (right arrow) – Increase shape width

  • Shift+← (left arrow) – Decrease shape width

  • Shift+↑ (up arrow) – Increase shape height

  • Shift+↓ (down arrow) – Decrease shape height

These resize operations are 'coarse,' as they resize the shape by several pixels for each keypress. If a finer resize resolution is needed, use Ctrl+Shift+(arrow key) instead.

In my hands, all of these resizes operate in a 'centered' fashion for floating shapes: the position of the shape on the page doesn't change as it's resized.

To note, this does not work in Word 2007 for Windows; the behavior instead is that described by OP in his comment to K V's answer, where the selection just hops over to the main text of the document. While I don't know of a simple keyboard shortcut for resizing in this situation, a possible workaround is to use the Size tools in the Drawing Tools Ribbon menu:

Ribbon screencap

On my system, shapes can be resized in increments of 0.01" via this approach.

Community
  • 1
hBy2Py
  • 2,233
  • 13
  • 28
1

Select the image, Hold Alt JP, Then Alt W (for width) or Alt H (for height), Then you can use the arrow keys to increase or decrease the size protortionally, or type in numbers.

Using word 2010 as a visually impaired user.

Hope this was helpful.

user902182
  • 11
  • 1
  • 3
    What is `Alt JP`? – Toto May 06 '18 at 10:00
  • I guess `Alt JP` is a hotkey to access "Object tools" menu though these ribbon hotkeys as you press it. So essentially it's about accessing width/height fields in object menu using alt hotkeys. I have highlighted the menus on a screenshot here: https://i.imgur.com/ota7o86.png (sorry for the Polish version, don't have eng at my hand now, but you should get the point) – Marek Lewandowski Apr 23 '19 at 11:12
  • This is very useful. Thanks. – Stephen Jacob Jun 24 '20 at 05:10
1

In Word 2010, I am able to resize using shift arrows.

Holding shift and click on any arrow, that will help in resizing a shape.

K V
  • 11
  • 1
0

In word 2016 you can´t change proportions by keys anymore you can only increase image size with Shift+Up and decrease it with Shift+Down

Tobias Brohl
  • 101
  • 3