PC & Laptop

How to select or highlight text in Microsoft WordPad

Posted by Sean Doyle
September 18, 2016
Updated March 17, 2025
1 min

Microsoft WordPad is insufficient when it comes to highlighting text with your mouse. It often seems like the WordPad program for Microsoft Windows Operating Systems has a not-so-smart selector feature enabled that chooses whichever text it wants you to highlight with your mouse. Even if you did not particularly hover over certain text it will still automatically force you to highlight words and spaces that you did not intend to.

To make matters worse, there is no option to disable the text section feature on Microsoft WordPad; However, there is a solution to select and highlight text in WordPad using your keyboard and mouse.

1. Place your cursor to the starting point or end point of the content you want to highlight

wordpad select text cursor

2. Hold the Shift button on your keyboard and use the right or left arrow key to begin selecting content

wordpad highlight text

Written by

Sean Doyle

Sean is a tech author and security researcher with more than 20 years of experience in cybersecurity, privacy, malware analysis, analytics, and online marketing. He focuses on clear reporting, deep technical investigation, and practical guidance that helps readers stay safe in a fast-moving digital landscape. His work continues to appear in respected publications, including articles written for Private Internet Access. Through Botcrawl and his ongoing cybersecurity coverage, Sean provides trusted insights on data breaches, malware threats, and online safety for individuals and businesses worldwide.