Changing the Office Assistant

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 3, 2018)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


1

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.

  5. Scroll through the available Office Assistant characters by using the Back and Next buttons.
  6. 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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Making Pasted Images the Same Size as the Original

Using the Snipping tool to place an image into a Word document can produce often confusing results. This tip looks at the ...

Discover More

Precise Ruler Adjustments

When adjusting the position of things on the ruler (like tab stops), you can use the Alt key to get very precise in your ...

Discover More

Pasting Into a Comment

Pasting the contents of a single cell into a comment is rather easy. Pasting the contents of a range of cells is a ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Auto Creation of an Acronym List

If you use a lot of acronyms in your documents, you may want a quick way to compile those acronyms and their definitions ...

Discover More

Displaying Quick Document Statistics

Need to see how many pages, words, paragraphs, or lines are in your document? Word makes it easy to retrieve such ...

Discover More

Automatically Saving Versions

The versioning feature in Word can be very handy as you develop your documents. Here's how to set it up so that a new ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is one more than 9?

2019-11-29 17:21:32

Rick

Hi, I hope you can help me. I have MS Office 2003 pro and I managed to download the Help Assistant (Rocky), however now when I close word, Rocky stays on the screen. I have to Click on the desktop for Rocky to disappear ? He usually goes back in his Dog House on closing Word, now, for some reason, he stays on the screen.


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.