Turn off paragraph collapse/expand arrows in word 2013

Anonymous
2013-01-18T15:27:33+00:00

Hi -

I'm not sure what it is called in Word 2013, but an arrow appears before a paragraph heading that allows you to collapse all text following the paragraph until it comes to another paragraph heading. Yeah - how do you turn this annoying feature off? I have clicked that arrow so many times when I just wanted to select text. I may be missing the item in the Options dialog box, can't seem to find it.

Thanks so much!

Tammy

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Jay Freedman 208.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2017-02-12T22:59:53+00:00

Thank you! I don't use group policy very much, and I wasn't aware that there were such settings there.

For other readers, if you don't have the group policy administrative templates or OCT for your version of Office, you can download the appropriate file here:

Office 2013 Administrative Templates and OCT

Office 2016 Administrative Templates and OCT

After the templates are installed, run the group policy editor (gpedit.exe*) with administrator rights. In the left panel, drill down to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Word 2013 (or 2016) > Word Options > Advanced. The two zoom level settings are about halfway down the list on the right side.

*The Home edition of Windows doesn't include the group policy editor. If that's the edition you have, then see https://www.itechtics.com/enable-gpedit-windows-10-home/.

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Anonymous
2017-02-12T16:44:30+00:00

All of the responses that are focused on removing the heading functionality are great unless you need headings to automatically number paragraphs or create a table of contents, etc.

If you really need the Expand/Collapse markers to go away, from group policy or the Office Customization Tool (OCT), set the Set the minimum zoom level for expand/collapse on-object UI to 110 and Set the maximum zoom level for expand/collapse on-object UI to 90. The little markers to the left of the heading go away. If you right-click, you can still collapse the heading. Right-click again and Expand heading is grayed out but Expand all headingsis still available.

For information on changing settings in group policy, go here:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179176.aspx

Hope this helps!

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47 additional answers

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  1. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2014-11-13T23:19:42+00:00

    If you press ALT+F9, is your text now enclosed in field delimiters { }?  If so, press CTRL+SHIFT+F9 to unlink the field.

    On the other hand the text is located inside a Bookmark.  Is that intentional?

    If you want to send me a copy of the document, I will investigate the issue.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-02-28T19:37:30+00:00

    Hi Tammy,

    One way to collapse a paragraph without collapsing all the text until the next heading is to set a continuous page break at the point you want to collapse up to. 

    Kae

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-04-23T23:51:30+00:00

    Regarding your final hint that explains how to ensure all headings are expanded.  I found it necessary to have the whole heading selected before right click in order to get the expand/collapse options in the pop up menu.

    Adding a button to the quick access tool bar is a great idea (or perhaps add it to a custom section of the ribbon toolbar).

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