ASSIGN A SHORTCUT KEY TO THE SECTION SYMBOL

As attorneys, we often cite to codes or books where the citation itself uses the section symbol: §. Unfortunately, there is no such symbol on our keyboards by default, which is inconvenient given how frequently that symbol is used. To work around this, I have set up Microsoft Office to insert a section symbol any time I hit Alt+s.

To do this, I opened Word and on the insert tab of the ribbon clicked on the Symbol button and then "More Symbols".

In the window that opens, scroll through the symbols until you find the section symbol. Click on it so that it is highlighted and choose "Shortcut Key" near the bottom of the window.

This will open yet another window. Click in the box labeled "Press new shortcut key" and press whatever shortcut key combination you would like to assign the symbol to. As mentioned, I chose Alt+s. Then, click on the "Assign" button in the lower left corner. After that, close the window.

Now, anytime you are in Word, you can press your shortcut key and the section symbol will be typed.