General Information About Smart Tags

In Microsoft Word, there are three options for controlling the appearance of smart tags. This article describes these options.

The three options for controlling the appearance of smart tags in Word include the following.

Show AutoComplete Suggestions

If you select this option, Word suggests the complete word or phrase when you type the first four letters of certain items, such as dates or AutoText names. When the suggestion appears, you can press ENTER or F3 to accept the suggestion, or just keep typing to reject the suggestion. If you clear this check box, the only smart tags that you see are those in documents written by other people. This option is selected by default. To display or hide AutoComplete suggestions, follow these steps:

1. On the Insert menu, point to AutoText, and then click AutoText. Or, on the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect Options, and then click the AutoText tab.
2. Click to select or clear the Show AutoComplete suggestions check box.

Show AutoCorrect Options Buttons

The AutoCorrect Options buttons appear near text after an automatic correction is made. The button first appears as a small blue box when you rest the mouse pointer near text that is automatically corrected, and it changes to a button icon when you point to it. This option is selected by default. To display or hide the AutoCorrect Options buttons, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect Options.
2. Click the AutoCorrect tab.
3. Click to select or clear the Show AutoCorrect Options buttons check box.

Smart Tags

If you select this option, Word displays purple dotted lines beneath your text to indicate smart tags. Smart tags indicate that you can do certain tasks, such as adding a name to a Microsoft Outlook Contacts folder from within Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel. This option is selected by default. To display or hide smart tags, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. Click the View tab.
3. In the Show section, click to select or clear the Smart tags check box.

Questions and Answers

1. I turned off all the smart tag options in Setup, so why are the smart tags still available in Word?
   
   Two components (handlers and recognizers) are installed to make the smart tags feature work. If you are missing one of these components, the smart tags are not marked in the document.
   
   The smart tag components that are selected in Setup are the smart tag handlers. The smart tag recognizers are part of the grammar feature.
   
   NOTE: To turn off the smart tags feature in Office Setup, click to expand Office Tools, click the Smart Tags Plugins icon, and then click to select Not Available on the shortcut menu that appears.
2. Why don't I see the same smart tags in Microsoft Excel as in Word?
   
   Microsoft Excel does not support most of the types of smart tags that Microsoft Word supports. The only smart tags that Microsoft Excel supports are the external smart tags, such as Stock Ticker or Names (from Microsoft Outlook). Microsoft Excel does not use the smart tags from the grammar feature, such as dates, places, and times.