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. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2014-01-17T22:13:23+00:00

    Try left clicking at the beginning of the text that you want to select and then move the mouse point to the end of that text and hold down the Shift key and left click.

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  2. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2014-01-17T20:13:29+00:00

    In order to be able to select a portion of a word, you must clear the check box for "When selecting, automatically select entire word" at File | Options | Advanced: Editing options. But that doesn't explain runaway highlighting such as you describe unless your mouse button has a hair trigger: double-clicking will select a word, Ctrl+click a sentence, and triple-click a paragraph.

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