Word has several AutoFormat functions that make formatting changes based on what you have typed. Word gives you control over which automatic formatting tools are enabled. Follow these tips to learn which AutoFormat features you want to keep and which ones may be more trouble than they are worth.

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

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

   Adding Automatic Lines
Want an easy way to add lines in your document? You can do it by making sure Word is using one of its AutoFormat features.

   Controlling Automatic Indenting
Type a tab character and you might just find that Word adjusts the indentation of the entire paragraph. If you don't like Word making assumptions about indentation based how you use the tab key, then you can turn this feature off using the steps in this tip.

   Controlling URL Formatting
When you type a URL into a document, Word helpfully converts it to a live hyperlink. If you don't want Word to be quite that helpful, here's how to turn off (or on) the conversion of those URLs.

   Smart Quotes are Incorrectly Replaced
Not able to replace smart quotes as you want? Here are some ways that you can be sure that every smart quote is changed, exactly as you want.

   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.

   Updating to Smart Quotes
As you type a document, Word automatically converts your quote marks and apostrophes to "curly" versions that look more professional. When working with a document from a different source that doesn't include these smart quotes, you may want to convert them all so they look the same. This is easy to do simply by using Word's Find and Replace function. This tip explains how.

   Using Correct Apostrophes
Word does a pretty good job of figuring out what apostrophes to use around your text. There may be times, however, when it messes up. Here's how to get just the right type of apostrophes before numbers.