Changing the Office Assistant

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated February 3, 2018)

Some days you feel like a paper clip, other days you feel like a genius or a dog. You can change the Office Assistant used by Word to reflect your moods, if you so desire. To do so, follow these steps:

  1. If the Office Assistant is not visible on your screen, asking you what you would like to know, press F1. If the Office Assistant still does not display, choose Show the Office Assistant from the Help menu.
  2. The Office Assistant should be displayed under a cartoon balloon that has two or three buttons at the bottom. If so, click on the Options button. If not, right-click on the Office Assistant and choose Options from the resulting Context menu. Either way, Word displays the Office Assistant dialog box.
  3. Click on the Gallery tab. (See Figure 1.)

    4. Figure 1. The Gallery tab of the Office Assistant dialog box.

  4. Scroll through the available Office Assistant characters by using the Back and Next buttons.
  5. When you find an assistant you like, click on OK.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1890) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He  is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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