turning off autocorrect in tables

[Jemmy Ducks]

While some people find Word's autocorrect feature a godsend, I find it
terribly annoying. I have, therefore, disabled it under
Tools:Autocorrect. So far, so good--until I begin typing in a table.

When I type text in a table the first letter of every first word in
every cell is automatically capitalized, even with all autocorrections
turned off. If I'm not in a table, all is well, and I can use upper
and lower case letters however I choose, without having to go back and
fix Word's "fixes."

What is going on? I thought perhaps there was something in the "table
grid" style that caused the autocorrections, but I can find nothing in
the style definition settings to alter this behavior. Is this a bug,
or am I missing something?

 

[CyberTaz]

You don't mention version, but if 2004 this is controlled by a SmartTag. The
next time it happens, move the pointer to the blue line that shows where the
correction took place. Click the button that appears and choose the
appropriate menu item.

HTH |:>)

 

[Jemmy Ducks]

You don't mention version, but if 2004 this is controlled by a SmartTag. The
next time it happens, move the pointer to the blue line that shows where the
correction took place. Click the button that appears and choose the
appropriate menu item.

HTH |:>)

It is indeed version 2004. And thank you very much. I had no idea
those blue marker meant anything more than, "See, human, I did
something for you."

jd

 

[matt neuburg]

It is indeed version 2004. And thank you very much. I had no idea
those blue marker meant anything more than, "See, human, I did
something for you."

I've written an ebook (www.takecontrolbooks.com) about Word 2004 that
would have explained this to you (and more). m.

 

[Tim Smith]

It is indeed version 2004. And thank you very much. I had no idea
those blue marker meant anything more than, "See, human, I did
something for you."

OK, that raises the obvious question: how do you turn it back on? If it
doesn't do the correction, you don't get the blue line, so it's kind of
hard to click it!

I know one way: delete comp.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist from
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft, but that's a little drastic.

 

[Tim Smith]

If you go to Tools>AutoCorrect you can simply replace the check for any of
the options that have been turned off by the SmartTag menu commands. If an
entry has been removed from the 'Replace text as you type:' list it will
have to be added back to the list.

That doesn't apply to text in tables. The checkboxes in
Tools->AutoCorrect just control that outside of tables.

Example: create a blank document, and make a table, say 3x2. Enter
"foo" in a cell, and it becomes capitalized. Enter "bar" outside the
table, and it too becomes capitalized.

Now turn auto capitalization off from the SmartTag in the table, and
check Tools->AutoCorrect. It is still on there, and still works outside
the table, but is off in the table.

You can check, and see that all four combinations are allowed:

off in tables, off outside of tables
off in tables, on outside of tables
on in tables, off outside of tables
on in tables, on outside of tables

So, the question is, when it is off for tables, is there some way to
turn it back on? Note that you can't use the SmartTag to do it, because
you generally won't have a SmartTag available if this is off!

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

To turn it back on:

1) Quit Word

2) Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/

3) rename the file com.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist

Restart Word. It will generate a new .plist on startup.

(Sorry: There is meant to be a way to turn it back on, but it got
overlooked).

Cheers

That doesn't apply to text in tables. The checkboxes in
Tools->AutoCorrect just control that outside of tables.

Example: create a blank document, and make a table, say 3x2. Enter
"foo" in a cell, and it becomes capitalized. Enter "bar" outside the
table, and it too becomes capitalized.

Now turn auto capitalization off from the SmartTag in the table, and
check Tools->AutoCorrect. It is still on there, and still works outside
the table, but is off in the table.

You can check, and see that all four combinations are allowed:

off in tables, off outside of tables
off in tables, on outside of tables
on in tables, off outside of tables
on in tables, on outside of tables

So, the question is, when it is off for tables, is there some way to
turn it back on? Note that you can't use the SmartTag to do it, because
you generally won't have a SmartTag available if this is off!

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[JE McGimpsey]

So, the question is, when it is off for tables, is there some way to
turn it back on? Note that you can't use the SmartTag to do it, because
you generally won't have a SmartTag available if this is off!

As the dearth of responses indicates, there's no way (that I know of, at
least) to turn it back on. It's a PITA, but your solution is to trash
the preference file.

FWIW, this is just one reason I set *all* (accessible) preferences in a
global template - it allows me to trash preference files with impunity.