Getting Help Offline

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated July 27, 2018)

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

Curving Text Around the Edge of a CD

Word works great with text, but not so great if you need to do some specialized things with the text, such as printing it ...

Discover More

Displaying a Hidden First Column

Hiding columns is easy, even hiding column A. How, then, do you get that left-most column displayed again? Here are a few ...

Discover More

F4 No Longer Changes Cell References

Excel has a wide variety of keyboard shortcuts that can help make it easier to use the program. When one of those ...

Discover More

Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Canceling a Command

Tired of waiting for a command to finish running? You can use the same shortcut to cancel a command that you use to ...

Discover More

Making Word Remember My Settings

Ever had the experience of setting some configuration option in Word, only to have the option revert to a different ...

Discover More

Ruler Disappears when Entire Document Selected

The rulers in Word can be quite helpful when formatting your document. The rulers may not be displayed all the time, ...

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 + 4?

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.