Getting Rid of Purple Dots under Your Text

Barbara notes that when she addresses an envelope in Word she usually chooses the "add to document" option, as she normally has other changes to make. When she does so, she notes that Word adds little red dots under the address line for the street address. These aren't the red wavy lines used to indicate a spelling error, nor are they the green wavy lines indicating a grammatical error—they are little red dots. Barbara has tried everything she can think of to find out what they are and how to remove them.

The little red dots (actually Microsoft says they're purple) are called Smart Tags. You can hover the mouse pointer over them and a Smart Tag indicator (a small circle with a informational "i" within it) will appear to the side of the underlined text. The box lists options you can choose depending on the type of Smart Tag triggered.

The appearance of Smart Tags depends entirely on the type of information you routinely use in your document. While addresses can trigger the appearance of a smart tag, so can other bits of information, such as stock symbols. Some people may never see a Smart Tag appear simply because they don't use documents that contain information that trigger the Smart Tags.

There is no doubt that the appearance of the Smart Tag dots can be distracting. Fortunately, Word provides a way that you can either turn off the Smart Tag capability completely or at least hide the Smart Tag underlines.

To hide the display of the Smart Tags, follow these steps:

1. Click the Office button and then click Word Options. Word displays the Word Options dialog box.
2. Click Advanced at the left side of the dialog box.
3. Scroll through the options until you see the Show Document Content section. (Click here to see a related figure.)
4. Clear the Show Smart Tabs check box.
5. Click on OK.

If you want to turn off Smart Tags all together (so that they aren't even recognized by Word), then follow these steps:

1. Click the Office button and then click Word Options. Word displays the Word Options dialog box.
2. Click the Proofing option at the left of the dialog box.
3. Click the AutoCorrect Options button. Word displays the AutoCorrect Options dialog box.
4. Make sure the Smart Tags tab is displayed. (Click here to see a related figure.)
5. Clear the Label Text with Smart Tags check box.
6. Clear the Show Smart Tag Action Buttons check box.
7. Click OK.