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.?

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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.

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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

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-02-14T01:12:26+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?

    Ctrl+Shift+O works and I had already added the Research option to the Review tab. Ctrl+Shift+O is better but not as good as what had worked for like 10? years.

    I wish I could get it to work the way you did. :(  Removing UK English did not work but maybe I had to have the Research pane open the first time or something else like the reboot order or not. When I remove/add Removing UK English it says I need to restart Office, how? Reboot?

    I need you to help me out on the reg edit again. So like ''HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word'' becomes ''HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\NotWord''

    Then reboot?

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-02-14T16:44:58+00:00

    Restarting Office means to exit all running apps. It's recommended any time you make a change that affects all of the Office apps, like changing a proofing language, that you exit all Office apps except for the one you're using to make the change, such as Word. And to also make sure there is only one document window open and to exit the application immediately after making the change.

    More on the above: In the Office apps, when you modify settings that affects the entire application, such as in File/Options, the updates to the application aren't made immediately. They're made when you exit the application. The document window you used to make the change holds a copy of the settings. If it's not the last window you close to exit the application, then any changes you made are discarded. The reason for this is the settings "held" by the last closed document window is what is used to update the application. The same applies to settings that affect all of the Office apps. The last closed app updates app settings. Rebooting your computer isn't necessary, but you can if you'd like. I'd actually reboot before I made changes that affect Office to make sure every all running Office tasks are closed.

    Regarding your question about the Registry, what you have is correct. The reason we recommend renaming it is so you can return to your previous settings if you like by deleting the newly created key and renaming the old one back. If you're certain you don't want to keep any custom settings, you can delete it.

    But keep in mind, Word cannot be running when you make changes to your Registry. If it is, any changes you make will be overwritten with the settings from the last document window you close and the key won't actually be rebuilt using the defaults.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-02-16T10:00:05+00:00

    Hi Tanquen1,

    In Beth's reply, she has explained your questions clearly, so we'd like to confirm whether you have tried the suggestion of modifing the registry key and whether this works for you.

    Regards,

    Tisky

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-02-19T14:50:43+00:00

    I tried adding UK and Canada languages and other than turning the Shift+” into an @ nothing changed.

    I tried enabling the new languages and making them the primary and then removing them and each time with the Research pain open.

    Renaming the Word key resets my Word config but the Alt+click Research remains unseen on any of our office PCs. We just have the 4 new Dell laptops that came with Windows 10 and Office 2010.

    This is so silly.

    It works in Word 2010.

    It works in Outlook 2016.

    It works in Excel 2016!

    It works in One Note 2016!@#!@#!

    It refuses to work in Word 2016. The only one I want it to work in and the only one until now I even knew it worked in.

    Good grief MS! Check your work!

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-02-19T16:54:24+00:00

    Full online Office repair seems to have done the trick. Again I say: Good grief MS!

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