“How did you do that?” is a question I get time and again whenever someone sees me select a column of text and manipulate it. The answer is, you hold down the Alt key as you click-and-drag the mouse.

“Okay, but what program are you talking about?”

Lots of ‘em, it turns out. I first noticed this feature in Miscrosoft Word, but all of my favorite programs offer it, including TextPad and Eclipse. This must be one of the best kept secrets of user-interface standards, and it’s a shame, because I swear this little time-saver alone accounts for hours and hours of my productivity every year.

Some Notes:

1. In some programs, like TextPad, you have to turn off word-wrap mode, before you can do column manipulation.
2. If you move a column of text from right to left and you don’t like the way it lines up, then undo the move and try going the other way (moving text from left to right).
3. Some programs think they’re doing you a favor by toggling column select mode every time you use it. If you try an alt-drag, but it doesn’t select by column, then be sure to try it a second time before giving up.