Why my shortcut key for Bold option automatically change from 'Ctrl+B' to 'Ctrl+ N'? (Word for Windows)

There have been problems recently with some shortcuts being changed, especially those shortcuts that are different in different language versions of Word. The problem is being investigated by Microsoft.

You should be able to change the shortcut manually, though. Ensure that you save the modification to the Normal template, so that it applies to all documents in Word.

Not working manually!

Not working manually!

If it isn't working for you, then something is preventing you from saving your template.

If you are on a network, for example work or school/university, a login script may be deleting or replacing your Normal template each time you sign in.

A simple test is to locate the Normal template in the user templates folder, if you are running Word on a PC, and check the time stamp. There should be a modification date when you add your keyboard shortcut (and also when you make other intentional changes that affect the template), but there should be no unexpected date & time stamps.

Hi Stefan,

I appreciate that you are a volunteer here, and not working for MS.

I wanted to add that my instance of MS-Word / M365-family has also switched 'bold' from ^B to ^N.

Last week (before 'super-tuesday') it was ^B - this week, after two (!) updates to Office, it is now ^N.

Not sure if you have a 'inside link' to MS, but this is just not bloody good enough!

^B has been the shortcut for 3 decades (at least) and now some **** decides that "oh, let's break everyone's work flow and make it some random keystroke - I know! let's override "new document" and use ^N as the "bold" shortcut. that won't confuse anyone."

as you can guess, somewhat frustrated / ticked off - and not just word, the weather has buggered up the cricket too.

.h

I've tried charging it back several times but it doesn't work. This is ridiculous.