Make words look like keystrokes in Microsoft Word

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Is there an easy way in Microsoft Word 2010 to make words appear like keystrokes the way we can here in Superuser?

Something like this: Ctrl + V

I know that <kbd> is an HTML tag, but in normal HTML that just switches to a fixed-width font. In fact, that's how Word treats it if you paste something from SU into a Word doc:

Pasted into Word

If there's not a standard way to do this in Word, is there a free font that might accomplish the same thing? I thought I'd seen some before but couldn't find any at the regular places I find fonts (dafont.com, fontspace.com).

techturtle

Posted 2012-10-15T14:50:10.540

Reputation: 8 059

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This is what I get when I copy from Chrome and paste in Word 2010: http://i.stack.imgur.com/fxLi4.png

– Der Hochstapler – 2012-10-15T18:33:28.797

Is that formatted text (that, for example, can be part of a sentence, and moves when the sentence moves) or is it an image? – Scott – 2012-10-15T20:51:44.020

@Scott It appears that it is actual text. I used Firefox for my example, but when I tried it in Chrome it does copy the formatting pretty close. Technically it's just adding grey borders, as was suggested in the accepted answer, but it does work. – techturtle – 2012-10-16T02:33:29.653

@techturtle: Sorry; that question was meant for Oliver.  My mistake; I didn’t address it properly. – Scott – 2012-10-18T22:44:17.160

@Oliver: In your example (copying from Chrome and pasting into Word 2010) — is that formatted text (that, for example, can be part of a sentence, and moves when the sentence moves) or is it an image?

– Scott – 2012-10-18T22:44:53.490

@Scott: That's text. It just has a background and a border, like you described in your answer. I guess it doesn't always work :\ – Der Hochstapler – 2012-10-19T10:06:05.667

Answers

18

Or, if you’d prefer not to download a font, do it in Word.  Just select the text and format Borders (and, optionally, Shading): screen snapshot showing text formatted with Borders and Shading

Scott

Posted 2012-10-15T14:50:10.540

Reputation: 17 653

Could @techturtle's addition of using the shadow border and spacing be integrated into the answer? It's a fantastic addition to a fantastic answer, and shouldn't be relegated to a comment. – Ben I. – 2019-02-25T17:17:10.813

3I can't believe I didn't think of this before. I just tried it out, setting a space before and after each word/character and then used the "shadow" border in word and it looks awesome. Definitely going to use this one again in the future. – techturtle – 2012-10-16T02:32:05.013

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Jared Tritsch

Posted 2012-10-15T14:50:10.540

Reputation: 3 030

+1, this type of font is what I've been using for years now. – Karan – 2012-10-15T19:33:00.170

The 2nd one you listed looks great for what I was looking to do this morning when I wrote this question. It's a little weird to work with the extended characters (for Ctrl, etc.) especially when trying to update the font sizes since they come out looking too small compared with the regular fonts. But it worked for what I needed. – techturtle – 2012-10-16T02:29:21.317

Asked: 2012-10-15T14:50:10.540

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Active: 2012-10-15T18:24:43.317