Getting Help Offline

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 6, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 2007 and 2010

Ben noted that Word doesn't seem to have a built-in, offline Help capability anymore, as it did in earlier versions of the program. When he attempts to get help, all inquiries seem to have to be online. He wonders if he is missing something in his installation of Word.

Actually, Word has both online and offline help capabilities. The default settings for Word, however, always use the online capabilities in preference to the offline ones. To change the settings, follow these steps:

Press F1. Word displays the Word Help dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Word Help dialog box.

Click the Connected to Office Online wording at the bottom-right of the status bar.
Click Show Content Only From this Computer. The status bar changes to Offline.
Use the Help system, as desired.

If, for some reason, you still cannot access the Help system on your local system (without going online), then you may need to reinstall Word or repair your installation of Word.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9352) applies to Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Bogging Down with Calculated Items

Create a complex PivotTable and you may find that your system slows to a crawl. The reason for this may be due to the way ...

Discover More

Moving Subtotals

When you add subtotals to a worksheet, Excel typically places them in the same column that you are subtotaling. If you ...

Discover More

Including Weeks in Elapsed Time

When showing how much time has elapsed between two dates, it is sometimes helpful to express the result in terms of ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Nifty Zooming with the Mouse

Want to use the mouse to control the zoom level for your document? You can do it by combining your mouse use with the ...

Discover More

Viewing Document Statistics

As you develop a document, Word keeps track of certain statistics about the document itself. Here is how you can review ...

Discover More

Jumping to a Relative Line Number

As you navigate through a document, you may have a need to move forward or backward a specific number of lines. This is ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 9 + 0?

2018-08-12 09:20:20

Antoine

Office 2016 as well as the Office 365 16.0 continuous releases ONLY has online help. The trick explained here is due to die...

2018-07-27 13:15:34

Office 2007 is now retired.
Update to a newer Office version to get product support.

So this tip is of no value to a Word 2007 user.

Your tip even shows Word 2007.

2014-08-04 10:37:20

JonSpain

Thank you very much, Janet, great.

Jon

2014-08-04 10:33:47

Janet Hall

Offline Help for 2013: Press F1. Click the down arrow in the upper left corner of the dialog box to the right of the words "Word Help". Choose Word Help from your computer. Close the dialog box.

2014-08-04 07:15:42

JonSpain

Allen

Thanks for that, it works on 2007, but do you have the same for 2013, please?

Jon

2014-05-01 20:51:27

Mike

Is it possible to get an offline spellchecker for Word 2013?

2014-02-27 16:56:28

Martin Kunz

Hi,
is there any possibility to get (dwonloaded or other way) the help files for Word 2013? I have got the program, but there is nothing to read when I am going offline. Where are the help files stored, in program folder?

2011-11-17 07:18:18

Dr Pam Miller

Thanks for this info re Off-line help. I never knew!

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.