Hiding Smart Tags

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 13, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 2002 and 2003

If you routinely work with documents sent to you by other people, you may want to hide the display of Smart Tags—the wavy purple underlines that appear in the document. To turn them off, so they are not visible, you can follow these steps:

Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
Make sure the View tab is displayed. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The View tab of the Options dialog box.

Clear the Smart Tags check box.
Click OK.

These steps only hide the wavy purple underlines; it doesn't stop SmartTags from being saved with the document. You need to follow the steps outlined in the previous tip to stop them from being saved with the document.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (7833) applies to Microsoft Word 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

Clearing All Tab Stops

Tab stops allow you to modify the horizontal position at which text is positioned on a line. If you want to get rid of ...

Discover More

Quickly Customizing the Keyboard

Want a quick way to change the shortcut key associated with a tool available on a ribbon, toolbar, or menu? Here's one ...

Discover More

Jumping to Text in Worksheet from an Index

In putting together a workbook, you may develop a worksheet that acts as an index, to contain links that lead to other ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! An easy-to-understand guide to the more advanced features available in the Microsoft 365 version of Word. Enhance the quality of your documents and boost productivity in any field with this in-depth resource. Complete your Word-related tasks more efficiently as you unlock lesser-known tools and learn to quickly access the features you need. Check out Microsoft 365 Word For Professionals For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Creating an Executive Summary

Word includes an "executive summary" tool that allows you to automatically summarize a document. This tool provides a ...

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

Changing the Office Assistant

How to change the Office Assistant character in Word.

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 eight more than 0?

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.