Customizing Word

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

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

Changing Color of the Insertion Point
In your quest to customize Word, you may change the colors used to display your document. After doing so, it may become easier than ever to "lose" the insertion point. Picking a different color for the insertion point might make it easier to use Word, but changing that color may be a quest for the impossible.

Changing Colors of Spelling and Grammar Underlines
The red and green wavy underlines used in Word can be a boon for proofing a document, but they are of little use if you have a certain type of color blindness. This tip explains some things you can do to hopefully change those colors to something you can see.

Changing Measurement Units
When working in Word's dialog boxes, most people understand that you should enter measurements using inches. If you don't like inches, you can change the default unit of measurement to something more to your liking.

Changing the Insertion Point Cursor
Want to change the characteristics of the insertion point used by Word? You may be out of luck, unless you make some changes in Windows itself.

Changing the Startup Directory
When you first start Word, it normally looks in the My Documents folder for files. Here's how you can configure the program to start in a different folder of your choosing.

Controlling Scroll Bars
Scroll bars are helpful if you have a document that won't fit entirely within the program window. Here's how to turn off the scroll bars if you have no need for them.

Displaying Actual Font Faces
Instructing Word to show a sample of the font before inserting it in a document.

Displaying Nonprinting Characters
There are several different characters that are routinely contained within a document, yet these characters don't show up on any printout. Things such as spaces, tabs, optional hyphens, and the like are all important parts of your document. A handy feature is to configure Word so it displays these characters on-screen. This tip explains how.

Displaying Screen Tips
ScreenTips are those small, yellow boxes that appear when you hover over different objects in Word. You have complete control over whether they appear or don't appear, all by making a simple configuration change in the Options dialog box.

Displaying Shortcut Keys in ScreenTips
ScreenTips can appear with or without shortcut keys displayed in them. Here's how to control whether they appear or not.

Displaying the Ruler
The ubiquitous ruler appears at the top of every Word document. It is so common place, that you may forget that it is easy to turn off or on, as your needs dictate. This tip explains how you can use the View menu to control the display of the ruler.

Factory Default Settings for Word
Do you long for a way to reset Word to a "factory default" condition? It is almost impossible to get things to the way they were the day you installed, but there are a few things you can do, as described in this tip.

Getting Rid of the Paste Options Box
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.

Helpful Pop-up Screen Tips
You can create your own screen tips in this handy tip.

Locking Down Word
How to configure Word to avoid changes in the environment.

Locking the Position of Custom Toolbars
Is your Custom Toolbar in a new place each time you open Word? Here are some solutions.

Modifying Quick Access Toolbar Images
Want to modify the button images used for Quick Access Toolbar images. It can be done, but it is not as easy as anyone would like. Here's some guidance on what you can do.

Quickly Switching Languages
Setting up macros to switch between languages easily.

Retrieving Built-in Commands
You can use macros to replace Word's built-in commands. If you want to retrieve the original behavior of the commands, then you need to either delete the replacement macro or change its name.

Returning Word to Default Settings
Want to set everything back to a pristine state in Word? Doing so is more involved than you may believe.

Setting User Information
When you install Word, it asks you to personalize your copy of the program with your name and contact information. This info can change over time, so it is helpful to know where you can change it within the program. Here's how to do it.

Speeding Up Document Display
Are your documents displaying too slowly? You can configure Word so that it is as quick as possible on displaying by using draft fonts.

The Case of the Disappearing Icons
Troubleshooting your custom icons on the Toolbar.

Tiling Documents
A quick method of placing your open documents side by side on the screen.

Too-Big Toolbars
Work around Words inability to have a multi-row toolbar.

Turning Off Automatic Capitalization
When you start typing, do you ever notice those times that Word starts capitalizing words at the start of what it thinks are your sentences? If this drives you nuts, you have complete control over turning it on or off. Here's how.

Turning Off Capital Corrections
If you type two capital letters at the beginning of a word, Word assumes that you made a typing error and will attempt to correct your mistake. If you don't want Word to make this assumption, you can turn off this AutoCorrect feature.

Turning Off 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.

Turning Off the SDI in Word 2000
Don't like the SDI in Word 2000? Wish you could change it?

Turning On Property Information Prompting
You may want to make sure that users of a document fill in the properties associated with a document. In most versions of Word, you can configure the problem to require this information, or at least prompt the user for the information before the document is saved.

Unchanging Toolbars
Create a macro to return Toolbars to the default settings.

Understanding View Options
Understanding the options available on the View tab of the Options dialog box based on the view you are using.

Updating Automatic Links
Normally, Word updates links within your document when you first open the document. If you don't want Word to do this, you can configure the program to forego the update.

Word Won't Start Right
If you can't see the Word window when you start the program, here's the solution.

 

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