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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  1. Stefan Blom 353.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-06-05T22:16:09+00:00

    I totally agree, Stefan. Adding section breaks for no good reason is not a good idea. Makes no sense to me.

    Yes, create a PDF , if you need to control what other people see. I wasn't interested in controlling what other people see in a document - I was asking how to turn off the collapse arrows as they work in their documents.

    What I suggested in the message to which you replied was primarily for MSSuks and Kae.

    As far as the original problem is concerned, you can make use of the option that expands all headings as the document is opened, but that's about it. Of course, that setting is user- and computer-specific; it wouldn't apply when you send a document to someone else. :-(

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-06-05T12:22:39+00:00

    I totally agree, Stefan. Adding section breaks for no good reason is not a good idea. Makes no sense to me.

    Yes, create a PDF , if you need to control what other people see. I wasn't interested in controlling what other people see in a document - I was asking how to turn off the collapse arrows as they work in their documents.

    I am always grateful to anyone who responds to my posts, but this post seems to have taken on a life of its own, and has gone in a different direction! :)

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  3. Stefan Blom 353.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-06-04T23:32:27+00:00

    Note that you shouldn't add a lot of section breaks to a document for no good reason, because it adds to document complexity). Instead, if you want to control what other people see when looking at the document, consider creating a PDF.

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