How can I change settings, turn features off or on, and alter the way Word behaves?

Most of these settings are on the Tools menu. The Options command will display a screen that contains several tabs where you can make all sorts of changes that affect Word's behavior. The Customize command allows you to change Word's menus and toolbars. TheView menu has some options for changing the appearance of the Word screen.
The rest of the answers in the Word Annoyances section and in the Word Screen section cover a number of the various ways you can customize Word and alter its behavior.

How do I get Word to stop helping me type?

There are several places to look to turn off Word's various automatic features:

1. Choose AutoCorrect (or AutoCorrect Options) from the Tools menu, then click on the AutoCorrect tab.
2. Clear the check boxes for the AutoCorrect items that you want to disable.
3. Do the same for the AutoFormat As You Type tab.
4. On the AutoText tab, clear the Show AutoComplete tip check box.
5. Choose Options from the Tools menu, then click on the tabs and clear any check boxes for features that you want to disable. For example:

• Edit tab (Tabs and backspace set left indent).
• Spelling & Grammar tab (Check spelling as you type and Check grammar as you type). When these features are on, spelling and grammar that Word does not recognize are underlined with wavy red and green lines.

How do I tell the Office Assistant to go away?

1. Click on the Office Assistant, then click on Options.
2. Clear the Use Office Assistant check box.

You can also customize the behavior of the Office Assistant by checking or clearing the checkboxes on the Options tab. If you want to learn how to customize the Office Assistant, but it's not currently visible, choose Show the Office Assistant from the Helpmenu.

How do I turn off the automatic URLs?

1. Choose AutoCorrect (or AutoCorrect Options) from the Tools menu.
2. Click on the AutoFormat As You Type tab.
3. Under Replace As You Type, clear the Internet and network paths with hyperlink check box.

If you didn't turn off AutoCorrect before you started typing and now you have a document full of hyperlinks that you don't want, you can turn them off, either one at a time, or all at once. To turn a link off, right-click on the link, select Hyperlink from the pop-up menu, and then select Remove Hyperlink. To remove all links from the document, chooseSelect All from the Edit menu or press Ctrl+A, and then press Ctrl+6 to remove all hyperlinks.