| Microsoft Word is all singing, all dancing.
Truly a great product which has made the lives of professional writers and students vastly
more productive.
Most of us however are not professional writers. We only
use Word to type an occasional missive or and article now and then. We don't need or use
90% of the bells and whistles. Unfortunately, some of these built in bells and whistles
are designed to impose themselves and often like to blow loudly in our ears whether we
asked for it or not.
Research shows there are three common pet hate 'features'
that most average users would rather turn off if only they knew how. This is a cheat sheet
for such users.
A. How do I stop Word from helping me type?
Word checks spelling and grammar as you type. When these
features are on, spelling and grammar that Word does not recognize are underlined sternly
with wavy red and green lines.
To turn off Word's various automatic checking features:
- From the Tools menu, pick 'AutoCorrect' (or AutoCorrect
Options). Then click on the 'AutoCorrect' tab.
- Uncheck the boxes for the AutoCorrect items that you want to
disable.
- Do the same on the 'AutoFormat As You Type' tab.
- On the 'AutoText' tab, uncheck the 'Show AutoComplete tip'
box.
- From the Tools menu, pick 'Options' then click on the tabs
and uncheck any boxes for features that you want to disable.
B. How do I tell the Office Assistant to go take a walk?
- Click on the Office Assistant, then click on 'Options'.
- Uncheck the 'Use Office Assistant' box.
You can also customize the behavior of the Office Assistant
by checking or clearing the checkboxes on the 'Options' tab.
If you later decide that you rather miss the lovable
Assistant, you can easily bring him back by choosing 'Show the Office Assistant' from the
Help menu.
C. How do I turn off the automatic URLs?
Word likes to convert all URLs and email addresses in your
document into active hyperlinks. If you'd rather not, then here's how to turn off that
feature:
- From the Tools menu, Choose 'AutoCorrect' (or AutoCorrect
Options)
- Click on 'AutoFormat As You Type' tab.
- Under 'Replace As You Type', uncheck the 'Internet and
network paths with hyperlink' box.
Note that this setting only applies to what you
subsequently type. If you forgot to turn off AutoCorrect before you started and you end up
with a document full of hyperlinks that you don't want, you can disable them, either one
at a time, or all at once. To turn a link off, right-click on the link, select 'Hyperlink'
from the pop-up menu, and then select 'Remove Hyperlink'. To remove all links from the
document, choose Select All from the Edit menu or press [Ctrl]+[A], and then press
[Ctrl]+[6] to remove all hyperlinks.
Most Word features can be turned off or on from the 'Tools'
menu. From this menu, the 'Options' command brings up a screen with several tabs where you
can make all sorts of changes to Word's behavior. The 'Customize' command lets you to
change Word's menus and toolbars.
The 'View' menu also has some great options for changing
the look of the Word screen. |
