Getting Rid of Fragment Warnings

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 1, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

As Christine is writing, Word often flags portions of her sentences with a "fragment consider revising" warning. These drive her nuts and she wonders how she can get rid of the warnings.

Some people like the suggestions made by the grammar checker; others hate them. The fact is, though, you don't need to turn the grammar checker off completely. You can configure the grammar checker so it only checks some things. Here's how to adjust the grammar checker so you don't see those annoying "fragment warnings."

Click Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
Make sure the Spelling & Grammar tab is displayed. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Spelling & Grammar tab of the Options dialog box.

Click on the Settings button. Word displays the Grammar Settings dialog box. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2. The Grammar Settings dialog box.

Look through the list of settings until you find the Fragments and Run-ons setting. (It is near the top of the settings list.) Clear its check box.
Scroll down and look for the Fragment – Stylistic Suggestions setting and clear its check box, as well.
Click OK twice to close both dialog boxes.

That should do it; you shouldn't see any more "fragment warnings" as you are writing your prose.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (5665) 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

Nifty Zooming With the Mouse

Want to use the mouse to control the zoom level for your document? You can do it by combining your mouse use with the ...

Discover More

Maintaining Fields in a Merged Document

When merging documents, you may want to include some fields in the merged documents. For some fields this is impossible, ...

Discover More

Setting the Default Font Size for Comment Balloons

Straining your eyes to see the comments in a document? You can modify the size of the default font used for the comments, ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 2013 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access) with VBA programming, using it for writing macros, automating Office applications, and creating custom applications. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2013 today!

More WordTips (menu)

Quickly Accessing Spelling and Grammar Options

You can change the way Word handles spelling and grammar checks through the menus. But there is a quicker way to access ...

Discover More

Spell Checking Your Document

One of the final touches that many people perform is to check the spelling of their document. This can help improve the ...

Discover More

Ignoring the Spelling of Proper Nouns

Proper nouns (such as the names of people) are routinely marked as incorrect by Word's spell checker. If you are tired of ...

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 five less than 6?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

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.