Tip #54 - Automatic Bullets/Lists in Word

100 Computer Tips in 100 Days

Tip #54 - Automatic Bullets/Lists in Word

More than ten years ago Microsoft introduced AutoCorrect to the world. We talked in a previous blog post about how great this feature is. However, there is one aspect of this feature that really frustrates people…how Word automatically thinks you’re starting a bulleted or numbered list as you type when you start a paragraph with an asterisk (*) or with a number.

Microsoft is just trying to be helpful but I do agree this can be a little frustrating. But there’s an easy solution, all you have to do though is look for the little lightning bolt control menu that appears whenever the program automatically “corrects” something.  Move your mouse on the menu and click on what you want to do. As you can see from the screen capture you can undo Automatic Bullets, Stop Automatically Creating Bulleted Lists (forever) or Control AutoFormat Options…  The last of these choices will bring up the AutoFormat Options dialog box where you can review other options that you might want to change.

AutoFormat is not just a Word feature. Those of you who use Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and other Microsoft programs will recognize it too. Just look for the lightning bolt to control automatic changes.