Word auto-highlighting, how to make it STOP!

Anonymous
2014-01-17T18:00:43+00:00

How do you disable this STUPID feature?

I'm trying to highlight a single word or some part of a word for cut&paste operations and Word auto-highlights the whole line and sometimes the whole paragraph or page.

I can be using a mouse, I can be using the shift+arrow keys, it doesn't matter. The auto-highlight takes over.

it seems to be worse on any kind of bullets and numbering or any header/footer fields.

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auto-indent is another evil feature. cut and paste from a notepad  and the indent is changed on your bullets and numbering. pretty much control-v means indent text right ->

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-08-15T00:19:10+00:00

    That was easy. And now my life is better.

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  2. Jay Freedman 208.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2018-03-12T19:43:01+00:00

    Stefan, I see your point, but it's a matter of personal preference. I find it easier to double-click when I want to select a whole word, which overall takes me less time than fighting with Word when I want to select just one character (often the first character) or to insert a missing character into the middle of a word. I'm a rapid but sloppy typist, so I make lots of small corrections!

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-03-10T23:37:27+00:00

    Yes but what a hassle having to do that everytime!!  - MS need to fix it!!

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  4. Stefan Blom 352.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-02-22T13:31:57+00:00

    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.        

    To prevent Word from selecting the paragraph mark, clear the "Use smart paragraph selection" option at File | Options | Advanced.

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  5. Stefan Blom 352.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-09-28T22:31:53+00:00

    Joe is correct, the feature is annoying.

    The problem occurs in some Emails and a form to fill in in Word.

    The behavior in e-mails isn't controlled by Word. Check the settings of your e-mail program.

    If by "form" you mean a protected form with text form fields, then you are quite right: selecting part of the text in a field is tricky.

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