Turning off Date AutoComplete in Word 2007
In microsoft.public.word.docmanagement, someone complained that Word 2007 offers to autocomplete days, months, and dates. Someone responded by posting the following URL, http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100997751033.aspx, which explains that it’s Word’s AutoComplete feature, and cannot be turned off. That would be fine–if it were actually true.
As it turns out, there actually is a way to turn this off in Word 2007, the statement to the contrary in that article notwithstanding. If you run the following macro, date AutoComplete should no longer occur:
Sub TurnOffAutoComplete()
Application.DisplayAutoCompleteTips = False
End Sub
Or, if you prefer a toggle, replace False with Not(Application.DisplayAutoCompleteTips).
The problem was that AutoText autocomplete was causing problems in the Office 2007 beta because of the way Building Blocks were implemented. So, autocomplete for AutoText was removed. In Word 2003 and earlier, the autocomplete checkbox control both dates AND AutoText. In Word 2007, they disabled autocomplete for AutoText, but left it enabled for Dates.
At the same time they removed the checkbox from the interface, they nonetheless left the command in the object model. Hence, you can use this command to turn off the parts of autocomplete that were NOT removed.
Turning off the Mini Toolbar
In Word 2007, when you make a selection, the Mini Toolbar, shown below, appears. When you right-click in a document, it also appears.
Word’s interface provides a way to prevent the Mini Toolbar from appearing when you first make a selection. However, the interface does not provide a way to prevent it from appearing when you right-click in a document.
To turn it off when you first make a selection, choose Office->Word Options->Popular, and remove the check next to Show Mini Toolbar on selection–the very first option–shown below.
What about the rest of the time? Thanks to fellow MVP Tony Jollans, I now have the answer. Simply write a one-command macro with the following statement:
Options.ShowMenuFloaties = False
This turns “floaties”–Microsoft’s name for the Mini Toolbar–off. If you’d prefer a toggle, instead, use the following:
Options.ShowMenuFloaties = Not (Options.ShowMenuFloaties)
This one toggles the Mini Toolbar on and off. I just created that macro and assigned it to Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F. Now, anytime the Mini Toolbar gets in the way, I can toggle it off. If I decide I want to use the Mini Toolbar, a quick press of Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F turns it back on.
Errata: Full Screen not really RIP
In the microsoft.public.word.docmanagement newsgroup, Martin Gifford pointed out that I mistakenly indicated that Full Screen view (not to be confused with Full Screen Reading View) had been completely removed from Word 2007. Indeed, on page 858, in the Word 2003 > Word 2007 commands appendix, I indicated that View->Full Screen was RIP. This is not correct.
In defense, I based this on information deduced from Microsoft’s Interactive Applet that shows where Word 2003 commands are located in Word 2007. If you choose View->Full Screen in the applet, you see this:
Notice that View and Full Screen Reading are both highlighted. Since Full Screen Reading and Full Screen aren’t the same, this allowed me to incorrectly conclude that Full Screen was no more. Searches in the command list in customizing the Quick Access Toolbar had turned up empty in searching for the legacy Full Screen or View Full Screen commands.
Oops.
I should have been searching for Toggle Full Screen View, instead:
As you can see, it’s not gone. You can add it to the Quick Access Toolbar if you like. Or, you can press Alt+V, U, and voila! The legacy keystrokes work. Thanks to Martin Gifford and Tony Jollans for pointing this out.
Where is Prompt for document properties in Word 2007?
In the microsoft.public.word.docmanagement newsgroup, someone asked:
In previous versions of Word, you could turn on an option to display the properties dialog box every time a new document was saved. Pretty easy.
In Word 2003’s Tools->Options->Save tab, you could tell Word to prompt for document properties
Who can tell me how to do this in Word 2007. Can’t find the option anywhere.
In the Developer tab (if it’s not showing, turn it on in Word Options->Popular), click Document Panel. At the bottom of the Document Information Panel dialog box, tick the Always show document information panel on document open and initial save option.
Making Word 2007 a Little More Familiar
Moving from Word 2003’s toolbars and menus to Word 2007’s ribbon can be a bit of a shock to many users of earlier versions of Word. Some of this shock can be eased, however, by making your most-used tools from Word 2003 as visible as possible in Word 2007.
Contrast the interfaces for Word 2003 and Word 2007. Here, I’ve told Word 2003 to show the Standard and Formatting toolbars on two rows:
Notice that right above the ruler, you see the style name, the font name, and the point size. For the most part, no matter what you’re doing in Word, this information is always there where you can see it.
Now, take a look at the default view for Word 2007:
Here, too, you see the style, font, and point size, at least initially. However, if a style other than the ones that fit in the current style gallery window is one other than the first 4 or 5 (sometime more, sometimes fewer), then the current style name isn’t available to the user. Moreover, if you move out of the Home tab, style, font, and point size are no longer knowable at a glance.
I’m guessing that the programmers at Microsoft aren’t writers. I can tell this because no veteran Word writer would put up with not knowing at all times the current style, font, and point size. These are vital pieces of information. Well, perhaps you don’t agree. If you don’t, then this post isn’t meant for you. It’s meant instead for users who want to know at all times what’s in their document.
A solution is at hand, however, in the form of the Quick Access Toolbar, or QAT as it’s more affectionately known. First, look at where the Quick Access Toolbar is. It’s up there in the stratosphere, thousands of miles above where you’re working. This means that to see it, you’re going to have to look way above where you’re accustomed to looking. It also means that you’re going to have to move the mouse quite a bit more than you did when accessing the Formatting toolbar in Word 2003 and earlier.
So, let’s move it. Right click the QAT and choose Show Quick Access Toolbar Below the Ribbon, as shown here.
Great. Now the QAT is closer to the battlefield, even if the selection of tools is somewhat lacking. Let’s address that problem right now.
First, let’s add a style tool to the QAT so you can see what you’re wearing, so to speak. Right click the QAT and choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar. Set Choose commands from: to Commands Not in the Ribbon. Click in the list of commands and tap the T key to accelerate to just below the last command that starts with “S”. Scroll up a few commands and look for one that says Style. When you hover the mouse pointer over it, you see this:
The word Classic is the clue that you’re in the right place. With Style selected, click Add to move the command into the right-hand panel. Click the up arrow (5) to the right of the right panel until Style is at the top:
Click OK. Let’s see what it looks like now:
Great! Now we can always tell what style is applied at the insertion point. Not so great, however, is that unless the Home tab is displayed, you can’t necessarily tell what font and point size are selected. Let’s fix that.
In the Home tab, right click the font tool’s dropdown arrow, and choose Add to Quick Access Toolbar. Next, right click the point size tool’s dropdown arrow and choose Add to Quick Access Toolbar.
This done, you’re almost there:
But, there’s a visual problem. If you came here from Word 2003, you’re used to the three tools–style, font, and point size–being side by side. Click the dropdown arrow at the right end of the Quick Access Toolbar and remove the checks next to Save, Undo, and Redo. You’ll have to do this in three motions, since the dropdown list doesn’t remain displayed.
Once that’s done, the three formatting tools you added will now be side by size. Now you can click the dropdown arrow on the Quick Access Toolbar and put those tools back. They’ll be added to the right of point size, rather than where they were.
If you like, you can set up the newly positioned Quick Access Toolbar as a combination of Formatting and Standard toolbar tools so that the tools you need most often are right in front of you:
From left to right, we now have: Style, Font, Point size, New, Open, Save, Bold, Italic, and so on. But, notice which ribbon tab is selected: Review.
Now, no matter which ribbon tab is displayed, you’ll always have those tools at the ready. But, most important, if the style, font, or point size in the current document ever look a little strange to you, you’ll be able to tell at a glance what’s what.