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Summary: Microsoft Word tries to be helpful and format items based on what it thinks you're doing. That's handy, if it's what you want. If not, it's annoying.
How do I turn off automatic formatting in Microsoft Word?
Microsoft Word tries to correct common typing mistakes and also tries to guess the kind of formatting you want based on what you're typing. While both of these activities look like automatic formatting, Word looks at them several different ways. Fortunately the options are gathered together though they're on a menu item that's typically hidden.
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Click the image above for a short video showing you how to turn on full menus in Microsoft Word, and find the AutoCorrect Options menu item. (Windows Media 9 format, 378,148 bytes.) |
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I'd Like Your Comments: let me know if you find the video above useful, or if you have suggestions to make this technique more helpful. Thanks! |
By default, Word hides menu items that you don't use often. You can click on the little down arrows at the bottom of any menu to see the full menu, or you can just turn the hiding feature off. To turn it off hit the Tools menu, the Customize menu item, the Options tab, and then make sure Always show full menus is checked.
If you look at the full Tools menu you'll see that there is now an Autocorrect Options menu item. Select that and you'll see a dialog with several tabs corresponding to the different types of automatic changes Word can make for you. In each are the settings that will allow you to control just how much you want Word to do.
AutoCorrect looks for common typographical errors and fixes them for you. For example a common error is to hold down the shift key just a little too long after starting a sentence, resulting in two capital letters instead of one. This is controlled by the Correct TWo INitial CApitals checkbox. The Replace text as you type list is a convinient way to define shortcuts for common or awkward entries and comes prepopulated with conversions such as "(c)" being replaced with the copyright symbol ©. You can define your own as well.
Autoformat As You Type applies formatting based on what Word thinks you're attempting to do, for example replacing the typed sequence "1/2" with an actual fraction ½ character. Here are settings which control automatic list generation as well which many people find either wonderful or incredibly annoying.
If Word has ever suggested what looks like auto-completion of what you're typing (along with "Press ENTER to insert") you've witnessed Autotext. Once again Word is monitoring what you've typed and if it begins to look like any of the items in the Autotext entries it suggests the full item as a typing shortcut.
AutoFormat is very much like Autoformat As You Type. Rather than applying formatting as you type, this option controls what formatting is applied when you used the Format menu, AutoFormat command to format your entire document at once.
Smart Tags are generated by Word when it thinks it understands the type of data you're entering. For example Word will most commonly mark anything that looks like an address with a SmartTag. The SmartTag may then include additional operations you could perform on an address including perhaps using a program other than Word to look it up. Smart Tags are also embedded in the document when you save it.
As you can see, Word has a number of options to automatically do things for you. But thankfully once discovered, Word actually allows you to control if and what it attempts to do on your behalf.
Article C1868 - December 12, 2003
Everytime I try to insert a text box in my word document it puts in the strange characters how can I get rid of this because it also prints in my documents,
Posted by: Climmie at January 9, 2009 7:08 AMI had the same problem on OSX using Office 2004.
The problem happened suddenly where if I reformatted one line (not individual words), the whole doc went to that format until I pressed Ctrl-Z. The problem in my case was in the Styles.
Choose MENU: Format/Style..., Pick the Normal style and Press Modify. At the bottom of the dialogue box is a check box for "Automatically Update". Switch this off. This check box should actually be labelled. "Autmotically Wreck Your Document".
To make sure that you change your Template document Switch ON 'Add to Template'
Then OK your way out.
Note this happens from time to time because I use Entourage which is the Mac version of Outlook. This program is an abomination. I regularly have to repair my database and whenever I do, I lose all of my preference in every office program and it seems to default to the most annoying set of choices imaginable. Good luck.
Posted by: David at January 11, 2009 7:38 PMThis is great for automatic formatting, but I want to get rid of the automatic date. When I want to type the full date (which is always) I press Enter to go to the next line, but of course that sets the automatic date in motion, and I get a second date - short version - next to the one I typed in. I can't find any way of stopping this process, and the Help tells you how to do it, but not how to turn it off.
Re formatting being applied to a whole doc, yes, I too have that case where I apply a format to one word but the whole doc formats, then I have to undo, which leaves the change on the correct word. I live with it ;-)
Posted by: Patti-Ann at January 15, 2009 4:04 AMI'm still Struggling! I have microsoft office & I want to turn off the annoying auto numbering.Unfortunately the "tools" option doesn't have an "auto correct" option. Can you help?
Posted by: Adele Rhodes at February 3, 2009 10:25 AMopen MS word, click open, select "document templates" in files of type. select the style you would like to change (e.g. Normal.dot). after opening the file, go to format>styles and formatting, click the dropdown menu on the style you want to change (eg. Normal), then select modify. in the pop-up, untick "automatically update". click "ok". then save the .dot file you opened. this should change the settings of the style you're having a problem with.
Posted by: janet at February 11, 2009 1:21 AMI can't seem to find "How to Turn Off Automatic Date" in Word.... Can you help please?? its driving me nuts..
Posted by: Vicki at March 24, 2009 7:21 PMThank you Nikki. I have Microsoft 2003 and I had the same problem where the whole document would change even though I selected a specific text. I followed ur steps and unchecked the preserve button and the problem stopped. I really appretiate ur feedback.
Posted by: Jen at April 16, 2009 9:11 PMThank you, thank you, thank you David (Jan 11, 2009). I was going crazy having to ctrl-Z to undo auto formatting every time I reformatted a paragraph. Your fix did the trick!
Posted by: Lloyd Johnson at April 23, 2009 12:45 PMDavid's question has gone unanswered so far:
How do you get word to simply put "" around words.
I have to type " and then space.
If I don't do the space A's become Ä, E becomes Ë etc
Posted by: David at September 14, 2005 1:58 AM
This is the behavior when an international keyboard is chosen from Windows. (It doesn't have to do with Word.) Change the keyboard from, for example, "US-International" to "US" and you won't see the behavior anymore. In Windows Vista, you can do this by going to the Control Panel, selecting "Regional and Language Options", and selecting the "Keyboards and Languages" tab. In earlier versions of Windows, I believe you did this by selecting "Keyboard" from the Control Panel, but I'm not positive.
If you have multiple keyboards active, then, under Windows Vista, you can switch between them by clicking on the keyboard icon in the tray bar at the bottom of the screen.
Posted by: Alan at May 28, 2009 1:41 PMThanks David, your answer solved my problem. My document was automatically getting wrecked everytime I made a small formatting change.
Posted by: mira at June 22, 2009 4:36 AM