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

Changing the Default Font

If you don't like the font that Excel uses, by default, in a workbook, you can change it. Here's how.

Discover More

Setting Up Your Printer

Need your printed output to look its best? You may need to change the settings used by your printer, then. Here's how to ...

Discover More

Reversing Cell Contents

Macros are great at working with text. This tip presents an example that shows this versatility by reversing the contents ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2021 or Microsoft 365. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word Step by Step today!

More WordTips (menu)

Locking the Position of Tools

Don't want your toolbar tools to move around on you? You might think you are out of luck, but here is a way you can make ...

Discover More

Handling Long Lines in Address Labels

When you print address labels, you only have a limited amount of horizontal space for each line of the label. If your ...

Discover More

Changing Label Printing Order

If you want to change the order in which labels are printed when doing a mail merge, Word doesn't provide many options. ...

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 6 + 4?

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.