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You may have noticed that one of the letters of each menu is marked with an underscore. This means that it can be reached by pressing “Alt” and the said letter. It works also inside a menu.
(I.e.: File. Press “Alt + f” and the file menu will open. If you keep “Alt” pressed and “u”, the “print setup” dialog will open).
You can also move in the menu with the arrows Up and Down, and activate it with “Enter”. If there is a submenu, the “Enter” key will display it. Just move until the item you want and press Enter to activate it.
(This is a tricky part of localizing a program, and some may be inactive due to a localization mistake.)

Several menu items open dialog boxes, like “Font”. You can also fully navigate inside those dialogs by using the keyboard:

Usually, one button will be selected by default, as show by a black border outside of the button, or a broken line inside. Open the “font” dialog (format/font) and you will see the “OK” button is selected. Pressing “Enter” will have the same effect as clicking on that button. To select option cases, press the space bar.

If you want to navigate in the different options inside a tab, use the “tab” key of your keyboard (I will write <tab> from there on). To change tab in the dialog box, press Ctrl + <tab>. You can use the arrows to select items.

It may seem a little clumsy to start with, but it will bring your speed up. If there are too many options however, it may be faster to use the mouse.

All right. Those are the BASIC shortcuts you should know and master. Learn them and use them.

One tip that can help you to learn them is to go to Tools/Customize-Options and select “Show ScreenTips on the toolbar” and “Show shortcut keys in the ScreenTip”. That way, when you forget a shortcut and that you have to use the mouse to click on an icon, a small box will appear to remind you of the shortcut. Force yourself to use shortcuts instead of the mouse and your speed will pick up.