MS Word 2016 Alt-Click on a word to open Research Bug

Anonymous
2018-01-28T21:55:02+00:00

Alt-Click is not working in Word 2016 but it still works in Outlook 2016 and all the other Office applications with that use the Research pane. It works in my old office 2007-2010 Word. How do I get it back.?

_______________________________

Still no way to fix this bug.

Microsoft broke the feature with their new modern Translator feature and did not give any notice of it or a way to fix it and it still works in all the rest of the Office apps. There are some suggested workarounds for the bug but they don't work on my PC. There is no way I can see to add the Alt+Click shortcut and the Group Policy change did not remove new the modern Translator feature.

___________________________________

Suggested workarounds, maybe someone else can get them to work.

If you still need or rely on the Alt+Click shortcut for Research pane, there are a few possible workarounds:

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

50 answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2018-02-08T14:17:13+00:00

    I'm sorry Jim, I don't think you really understand the issue. Try what again? I already explained what you offered before has nothing to do with what's going on. Domain policies excetra wouldn't change anything.

    Version is already the latest. The odds of that changing anything would be extremely low. This is something Microsoft has done in this version of office and this version of Word. My guess is they will never ever release an update that will change this Behavior. Maybe in the next version of office, Maybe.

    The only chance of fixing it is something like Bethel suggested or registry fix if possible. Again she has already said she's changed the behavior so apparently it's possible.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Stefan Blom 353.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2018-02-08T15:33:11+00:00

    This certainly looks like a bug.

    Note, however, that you can make use of the built-in shortcut Ctrl+Shift+O to look up the word at the insertion point in the Research pane.

    In addition, you can assign a shortcut to the Research command (via the Customize Keyboard dialog box) if you want a quick way to display the Research task pane without looking up the word at the insertion point.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2018-02-08T17:13:34+00:00

    I read through this thread again and one thing I didn't suggest was to rename the entire Word key in the Registry. Here it is again for reference:

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word\

    Another thing I thought of is I manually turned on the display of the Research pane before I changed the language. Are you able to view the Research pane using Ctrl+Shift+O or from your Quick Access Toolbar?

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2018-02-12T02:50:21+00:00

    Hi Tanquen1,

    Sorry for the confusion, I was saying that you can try MVP's suggestions and workarounds above, not my previous reply. 

    I tried the function works fine in my VM with the latest version of Word 2016 installed, so I still think it's a local issue.

    Thanks,

    Jim

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2018-02-13T06:44:56+00:00

    Hi Tanquen1,

    Does MVP's suggestion work for you? Let us know if you have any update.

    Regards,

    Tisky

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments