A tip to get a keyboard shortcut for the "Center Text"–command in OneNote 2010

This question bubbled up over on the social group:

"What is the keyboard combination for centering the text in a OneNote 2010 table cell or column? In previous versions of OneNote I was able to center text in a table cell or column using the Ctrl+E keyboard combination. In OneNote 2010 that same keyboard combination now runs the Search function."

Good question and exposes some really nice tweaking you can perform to customize OneNote for your preferences. Here's how:

There are at least 2 ways to do this.  ALT+H,P,C will invoke the ribbon Home tab, then Paragraph Formatting and finally Center.  You have to keep the ALT key pressed, but this works "as is."

If you want to modify the quick access toolbar, you can add the Center command to it.  Click the dropdown arrow for the QAT (the topmost toolbar just to the right of the ON icon on the top left of the windows frame), then select More Commands.

  Search "All Commands" and add the Center command to the ribbon.

Now when you press ALT, you should see the commands on the QAT have each been assigned a number.  On my machine, ALT+5 will center the text - your number might be different depending on what commands you have there.  You can also reorder them and customize these commands as you want.

I also save my customizations (there is a save command in the options dialog) so I can apply them on new machines, or when I have to clean install a new machine for testing.

Oh, and if you customize this toolbar, you can declare yourself a "OneNote Power User." This is a very powerful tip and really lets you tweak OneNote to optimize it the way you use it.

Questions, comments, concerns and criticisms always welcome,

John