Changing the Office Assistant

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

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:

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.
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.
Click on the Gallery tab. (See Figure 1.)

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

Scroll through the available Office Assistant characters by using the Back and Next buttons.
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. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Applying Text Options in WordArt

WordArt is a great tool for adding color and variety to your documents. Here's how to apply different types of ...

Discover More

One Change Affects Everything

Have you ever made one formatting change in your document, only to see that change applied to all the paragraphs in the ...

Discover More

Filtering to a Standard Deviation

When you are working with large data sets, you may want to filter the information in those data sets according to various ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! Are you ready to harness the full power of Word 2013 to create professional documents? In this comprehensive guide you'll learn the skills and techniques for efficiently building the documents you need for your professional and your personal life. Check out Word 2013 In Depth today!

More WordTips (menu)

Curving Text Around the Edge of a CD

Word works great with text, but not so great if you need to do some specialized things with the text, such as printing it ...

Discover More

Using the Organizer to Manage Macros

There may come a time when you want to copy or rename macros. You can do this quite easily by using the Organizer tool ...

Discover More

Refreshing the Discussion

To keep up with the Discussion, you will need to refresh the comments to make sure you are in-the-know.

Discover More

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.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 9 + 7?

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.