Word auto-highlighting, how to make it STOP!

Hello.

I'm unsure if anyone out there still needs this answer, but I just figured it out on my end. Been having this problem at work and nothing infuriates me more than software not doing what I tell it to. 

I went to File, then down to Options. (Not sure of different ways to get here with other versions, I have 2010.) Under Options, I clicked Advanced. Then allll the way at the bottom, under Compatibility Options, there's a checkbox for 'Select entire field with first or last character'. I unchecked that box, and lo and behold, I have control of my highlighting again!

Hope this helps, even if it's two years late.

Word 2016 is riddled with bugs and user-hostile features. But from what I can see, Microsoft doesn't give a rats about fixing bugs and is only concerned with forcing you to use their absurd cloud and 'the store'.

As a software engineer, I would be embarrassed to have my name and professional reputation associated with a product that is so poorly implemented. Did Microsoft layoff its QA department?

Simple things like allowing the user to edit a word in the spell checker popup dialog box have been removed and have been replaced with a very unusable 'task pane' that obscures part of the text that you're trying to correct - and then fails to redraw the screen under the task pane when you are finished spell checking. If the spell checker can't find a replacement word for something in your text, you have to kill the spell checker, scroll the text vertically in order to get the screen repainted, type in the replacement text yourself, and then restart the spell checker. Very amateurish.

How about a spell checker that can not see the word "Follett" in my custom dictionary as a viable replacement for "Follet" in my text. Try it - even Microsoft can't get it to work.

Anybody like the vanishing scroll bars? Or the fact that you can no longer make the mouse pointer snap to the default button in a dialog box?

I have tried to get Microsoft to fix these and other failures and their response is that I have to go to some web site, write a complaint and hope that a lot of other people find the same bug. If a lot of people complain, then the self-anointed gods might try to fix the bug. But there is no profit in bug fixes, so don't hold your breath

Disabling the auto-selection of whole words is the key, BUT, MS s/w also decides to select the end-of-line (paragraph) mark when using mouse or keyboard extended selection. Only a keyboard intervention unselects it again. This is idiotic behaviour, especially as formatting attributes are stored in that paragraph mark, which most of the time I DON'T want to be copied.

The "fix" is to clear the option "When selecting, automatically select entire word" as mentioned earlier in this thread by NateMenz. I do that routinely, and I don't miss the so-called "convenience". If I want to select a whole word, I just double-click it.

If you uncheck the option and Word still selects a whole word when you single-click inside it, it's being interpreted as a double-click. That can happen when your mouse malfunctions and the switch under the mouse button "bounces". The part about selecting a whole paragraph when you click twice is additional evidence -- Word should need a triple click to select a paragraph. In that case, try using a different mouse.

The insert key key does not solve the problem and the document is locked so one can't access the toolbars.

It is a bug in Word.