How to select a word with keyboard when the cursor is on or adjacent to the word?

Question

It is possible to select a single word by double-clicking on any part of the word.

With only my keyboard, is it possible to select a word when the cursor is on or adjacent to the word?

Solution

Yes, with the mouse you just double click as you said.

With the keyboard you can use CTRL to jump one word at a time and CTRL+SHIFT to select a word, while in conjunction pressing the arrow keys.

Comments

[Jeff Atwood]

can you clarify? I don't understand what you mean by "word that is around cursor"

[ChrisF]

Double clicking on a word normally does select the entire word - that's the normal behaviour. What application are you running?

[Jarek]

I'm sorry I was in middle of writing and got interrupted and forgot to say about keyboard.

[studiohack]

and if you want to be exact, you can use Shift + Keyboard arrows to select characters more precisely.

[Manachi]

Technically, the answer is actually to use ctrl or ctrl+shift in conjunction with the arrow keys to jump or select words. Pressing ctrl or ctrl+shift by themselves wont do anything ;)

[Tamara Wijsman]

@Manachi: Technically incorrect, modifier keys modify the modification key state in the memory of your computer. ;-) While we're at it, our comments are already longer than just correcting the answer itself. :-)

[user3439968]

With mouse you can double-clicking on ANY part of the word. With keyboard you need place cursor at start of word before use CTR+SHIFT+RIGHT. Basically need to press CTRL+LEFT to place cursor to beginning of word and then press CTR+SHIFT+RIGHT to select this word. Not so simple as just "double-clicking on any part of the word".

[mouwsy]

The solutions presented here are not smoothly, because the space at the end of the selected word is also selected. Unfortunately, this also happens when double-clicking (tested in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel). Does anyone know a solution for selecting the word without the space at the end?