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
    2018-03-12T13:08:23+00:00

    There is one advantage to the "automatically select entire word" option, though: You can apply character formatting to a word without having to select it first. Just clicking inside the word suffices.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-03-11T01:48:56+00:00

    Every time I want to put the curser at a certain point (usually to add a space between words, change text or correct a spelling mistake it ALWAYS highlights the entire word, sometimes if I click twice it then highlights the entire paragraph. My intention is not to highlight at all just to place the cursor in a particular position - so the shift arrow thing does not solve my issue - SOOOO Frustrating!! It does this in word and in hotmail. It is so bad it s happening everytime I click the cursor in to postiion (counted 37 times in this text alone - I'm a dyslexic typist so need to do corrections all the time) it really is driving me crazy, Ive tried everything, nothing has worked and when I'm writing a long document it literally adds hours to the process. I cannot understand why MS have not addressed this!!?

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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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