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
    2018-03-24T19:48:10+00:00

    the INSERT KEY is pure genius solved all my problems.. THANKS .. is your name Bill Gates jr. you know .. the one that cares??

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-04-12T19:34:17+00:00

    I'm also having this problem, in notes in Word 2016. I click on the text in any note, and the whole note gets highlighted. Within the highlighted text, I can place the cursor and try to drag, but if I go beyond the next line from where I placed the cursor, the "secondary highlighting" goes all the way back to the beginning of the note. No way to make it not do that.

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  3. Stefan Blom 352.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2018-04-14T20:23:25+00:00

    What have you tried so far, out of the suggestions in this thread?

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-05-26T16:26:42+00:00

    I know this is an old thread but wonder if u have any new solutions.  I have windows 8.1 and cannot move my cursor in anything, fb, email or word, without highlightimg a whole word or paragraph.  Ive turned off select whole word and deleted sticky keys.

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  5. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2018-05-26T22:27:54+00:00

    Not a new solution, but left click with the mouse before the first character that you want to select, move the mouse cursor to just after the last character and then left click while holding down the SHIFT key.

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