Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for this topic. Click the article's title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

Configuring Word for Audible Feedback. Want Word to make sounds when giving you feedback? This audible response is easy to turn on.

Controlling Background Repagination. When you are editing a document, Word is constantly calculating and adjusting the pagination of the document. If you find this background calculation distracting, you can easily turn it off.

Controlling ScreenTips. ScreenTips can be very helpful in figuring out what different tools and objects are used for in Word. If you find this helpful feature distracting, you can turn it off by following the steps in this tip.

Getting Notification of File Conversions. Open a file that isn't a Word document and Word will still try to convert it to a Word document. If you want Word to let you know when it is going to do these conversions, here's how to specify that.

Getting Rid of ScreenTips. All those little ScreenTips bug you when moving through the toolbars and ribbons of Word? You can turn them off by following the steps in this tip.

Selecting Words Automatically while Editing. When you are editing your document, there are many times that Word tries to guess what you are doing and then complete your task for you. This helpfulness can be aggravating at times. Once such instance is when you are trying to use the mouse to select text from the middle of one word to the middle of another.

Turning Off Notification of Formatting Inconsistencies. In an effort to make your writing better, Word uses "squiggly" underlines to mark things it thinks you may need to change. If you see some blue squiggly underlines on your screen, you may wonder what they are for and how tot get rid of them. Here's the skinny.

Turning Off the Paste Options Buttons. Paste something in a Word document, and you may notice a dynamic little set of options appear right next to what you pasted. If you find these "paste options" distracting, you can configure Word so that they aren't displayed.

Viewing All Your Text Horizontally. If you are viewing a document and your text runs off the right side of the document window, it can be a real bother to scroll left and right. Word allows you to configure the program so that your text will always stay within the display space available.

Wrapping Text Differently in Draft and Outline Views. Normally Word displays, on screen, a close approximation of how your text will look when it is printed. If you are working in Draft or Outline views, however, you can specify how you want Word to wrap the text on each line.