Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 12, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021
When Arlene begins typing a document, the text starts out in Normal style. She frequently types short bits of text with no punctuation at the end. When she presses Enter a couple of times to move to a new line, the style changes to Heading 1 with different font and color (of course). When it happens, she backspaces, and the text reverts to her default font and style. She wonders why Word is doing this.
Believe it or not, this is a built-in feature of Word. In its never-ending quest to be as helpful as possible, Word tries to anticipate how you want your text formatted. If you type in a paragraph that contains a small number of words (typically five words or less) and you don't put a punctuation mark at the end of those words, then the program—as soon as you press Enter—assumes you are entering a new heading and applies a heading style to what you entered.
Here's how you can turn off that feature of Word:
Figure 1. The AutoFormat As You Type tab of the AutoCorrect dialog box.
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2023-05-04 05:58:29
X Zoghbi
Thank you!!! :D
2022-08-25 17:32:56
Cindy B
Allen,
I kept running into this issue as well. I could swear, though, that it didn't begin until early 2022. Not sure why. And this drove me nuts. I kept fiddling with the text to make it not a heading. Today I got fed up and googled for help. Your article was at the top.
Your instructions were very clear. Thank you so much for posting this. You just saved my sanity a bit.
Thanks again,
Cindy
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