Complete List of Shortcuts for Creating Bullet Points

Bullet points are a great way to break down your content into easy-to-digest chunks. To keep your document organized, learning a shortcut to create bullet point can come in pretty handy. And this article has got you covered with tons of bullet point shortcuts you can use for commonly used applications like Word and Excel.

To list items or points in a document, we commonly use bullets. Using bullet points, we can summarize ideas and facts into shorter sentences. The common way to add bullet points is by using the bullets button on an application. But tons of shortcuts can make it even easier and faster for you.

Why Use Bullet Points?

Bullet points are brilliant paragraph formatting tools. They serve as a way to group different ideas that have the same level of importance.

Unlike other types of paragraph formatting, they’re quick and easy to do. Most importantly, you can use them to convey information to the reader in a way that is clear, concise, and easy to process.

Here are some other benefits of using bullet points (in a bullet point list):

• Simplifies your overall writing style 
• It makes a text more readable and concise
• Breaks down complex and large data
• It makes your text more organized and easy to digest

How to Add Bullet Points for Word

Adding bullet points for words is fairly easy. And there are different ways to go about it. Here are just some of them:

Using the Bullet Button

The bullet button can be found on the Home menu of Word. It is grouped with the Paragraph tools.

• Click on the bullet button at the paragraph tools menu and start typing items for your list
• Highlight the paragraphs you want to add bullets on and click on the bullet button

Keyboard Shortcuts for Word

Method 1

Type * (asterisk) to begin a bulleted list or 1. to launch a numbered list, and then press the Space bar or Tab key. This will automatically start a bullet or numbered list for you.

Method 2

• Select the paragraphs you want to apply bullet points on
• Press CTRL + Shift + L.

How to Add Bullet Points for Excel

Adding bullet points in Excel is very similar to Word. There isn’t a button to insert a bulleted list in Excel, but you can create a bullet point symbol to mimic one.

• Select the Excel you want to add the bullet point to
• Click the Insert tab on the main menu.
• Click the Symbols tools that are on the right side of the menu. Afterward, click on Symbol.
• You’ll be given a long list of symbols to choose from. To narrow down your search, select General Punctuation in the subset field.
• Click the bullet symbol (•) to highlight it and click Insert.

Keyboard Shortcut for Excel

• Select the cell you want to insert the bullet in
• Double-click on the cell or press F2 to get into edit mode.
• Hold down the ALT key, and press 7 or 9.
• A bullet will automatically appear when you release the Alt key.

Using the CHAR function

When given a valid character code, Excel CHAR returns a specific character. This is usually used with characters that are difficult to enter into a formula.

• Select the cell you want to edit
• Type in =CHAR(149)
• Press Enter

General Keyboard Shortcut to Create Bullet Point

For Windows users

Keep the following steps in mind if you wish to make a bullet point using the keyboard shortcut Alt + 0149:

• Press Num Lock to activate your numeric keypad. You can usually see this on the right side of your keyboard.
• Place the cursor where you want to insert the bullet symbol.
• Press Hold down the Alt key while typing 0, 1, 4, and 9 one after the other.

This keyboard shortcut method is compatible with virtually any application. This includes Notepad, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Google Chrome, and Adobe Photoshop.

For Mac users

• Go to the specific part of the document you want to add the bullet point symbol to
• Hold down the option key
• Press 8

Final Thoughts

Bullet points can greatly benefit your text. They allow readers to easily scan the text and piece together what’s most important. In general, they’re an easy way to convey information efficiently and simplify complex ideas.

There are a variety of ways to add a bullet point to your document. Some are more tedious than others. By learning a shortcut to create bullet point, you can make this process much easier for you.