You need to request this change in status from your network administrator. If you are changing the program defaults (which change “Normal.dot” and these changes are lost every time you shut down, it is probably because you are on a work computer where you do not have “administrator privileges”. But thankfully once discovered, Word actually allows you to control if and what it attempts to do on your behalf. Smart Tags are also embedded in the document when you save it.Īs you can see, Word has a number of options to automatically do things for you. For example Word will most commonly mark anything that looks like an address with a SmartTag. The SmartTag may then include additional operations you could perform on an address including perhaps using a program other than Word to look it up. Smart Tags are generated by Word when it thinks it understands the type of data you’re entering.AutoFormat is very much like Autoformat As You Type. Rather than applying formatting as you type, this option controls what formatting is applied when you used the Format menu, AutoFormat command to format your entire document at once.Once again Word is monitoring what you’ve typed and if it begins to look like any of the items in the Autotext entries it suggests the full item as a typing shortcut. If Word has ever suggested what looks like auto-completion of what you’re typing (along with “Press ENTER to insert”) you’ve witnessed Autotext.Here are settings which control automatic list generation as well which many people find either wonderful or incredibly annoying. Autoformat As You Type applies formatting based on what Word thinks you’re attempting to do, for example replacing the typed sequence “1/2” with an actual fraction ½ character.The Replace text as you type list is a convinient way to define shortcuts for common or awkward entries and comes prepopulated with conversions such as “(c)” being replaced with the copyright symbol ©. This is controlled by the Correct TWo INitial CApitals checkbox. For example a common error is to hold down the shift key just a little too long after starting a sentence, resulting in two capital letters instead of one.

AutoCorrect looks for common typographical errors and fixes them for you.Let me know if you find the video above useful, or if you have suggestions to make this technique more helpful.

Click the image above for a short video showing you how to turn on full menus in Microsoft Word, and find the AutoCorrect Options menu item.

Turn off formatting in mac for word