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. Stefan Blom 352.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2018-03-11T00:15:33+00:00

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

    Whenever you want to select a long text range, clicking and then Shift-clicking (as Doug suggested) is actually the easiest method. But of course you don't have to do it that way.

    What are you trying to accomplish, exactly?

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  2. 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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  3. Stefan Blom 352.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-12-29T23:59:57+00:00

    Sometimes, clearing that option is helpful.

    However, there is also a disadvantage: If you ever apply (say) bold formatting by clicking in a word and pressing Ctrl+B or Ctrl+U, you can no longer do that unless you first manually select the word in question. Clicking in the word will no longer suffice, when "When selecting, automatically select entire word" is cleared.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-12-29T21:35:50+00:00

    I disabled this annoying feature in Word 2010 via:

    File --> Options --> Advanced --> Unchecking "When selecting, automatically select entire word"

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  5. Stefan Blom 352.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-12-03T22:28:07+00:00

    Normally, selecting shouldn't happen during typing. "Blue highlighting" sounds more like text shading to me.

    Please upload a screen shot that illustrates what you see.

    Also, have you ruled out Extend Selection as discussed earlier in this thread?

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