The AutoFormat in Word is a handy feature but it can also be a an aggravation if you do not want it to make your choices for you.
If you are not already familiar with the AutoFormat feature, it works behind the scenes to produce a document that is well formatted and the only responsibility you have is for the text. It will look at every paragraph in your document to see how your are using it in your document, such as a heading or a bulleted or numbered list and then it will apply the appropriate style for that item.
This feature can automatically format Internet, network and e-mail addresses as hyperlinks, apply bold or underline character formatting to text that you enclose in asterisks or underscores or replace hyphens with dashes.
AutoFormat works in the manner below:
Word will automatically format items such as headings, bulleted and numbered lists, borders, numbers, and symbols as you type your document. You can control which automatic changes Word makes, or you can turn Autoformat off completely.
You can automatically format selected document text or the whole unformatted document, such as an e-mail message, when you click AutoFormat on the Format menu. You can review, accept or reject each change.
By default, the AutoFormat command is not available on the Ribbon in version 2007 or later versions. If you want to manually format selected document text or the whole unformatted document in version 2007 or later versions you can use the AutoFormat command.
In version 2007, you can add the AutoFormat command to your QAT. Follow the steps below to learn how:
- Click Office button | Word Options | Customize.
- In the Word Options dialog box, in the Choose Commands from list, click All Commands.
- In the list of commands in the selected category, click AutoFormat | Add | OK.
In version 2010 and later versions, you can add the command to a custom tab. Follow the steps below to learn how:
- On the File tab, click Options.
- Select Customize Ribbon.
- Under Choose commands from, replace Popular Commands with All Commands.
- Select one of the AutoFormat commands and click Add. The first command will AutoFormat an entire document. The second command will display the AutoFormat dialog with options before applying the format.
You may have to add a new tab before you add the command to the Ribbon.
Follow the steps below to turn off AutoFormat as you type options:
In versions 2007 or 2010:
- In 2007, click the Office Button and Word Options.
- In 2010, select Options from the File tab.
- Click Proofing | AutoCorrect Options.
- On the AutoCorrect tab, click to select or clear the check boxes for the options that you want to either enable or disable.
- Click OK twice.
To turn off Autoformat Options, follow the steps below:
In versions 2007 and 2010:
- In 2007, click the Office Button and Word Options.
- In 2010, select Options from the File tab.
- On the AutoFormat As You Type tab, click to select or clear the check boxes for the options that you would like to either enable or disable.
- Click OK twice.
When you click OK in the AutoFormat dialog box to automatically format your existing Word document, MS Word only uses the features that you selected to format your document.
When you change the AutoFormat and AutoFormat As You Type options, the changes are saved to the Windows registry in the Word Data key.