Disable Smart Tags

Summary: Keep Smart Tags from appearing in your Microsoft Word 2003 documents.

Microsoft Word 2003 introduced the concept of “Smart Tags”. When Microsoft Word recognizes a date, time, or other piece of information, it will underline the text in red. Hovering your cursor over the text brings up an “i” button. Clicking the button brings up a menu where you can performs tasks such as looking at a particular date in your Outlook Calendar, looking up a stock quote on a website, or adding a phone number to your Outlook Contacts.

While some may find Smart Tags useful, others may find them annoying, plus it takes extra CPU time for Microsoft Word to analyze a document for text to link up with Smart Tags. Thus, you can disable this feature if you’d like.

1. Select “Tools” then “AutoCorrect Options”.
2. When the “AutoCorrect” multi-tabbed dialog box appears, select the “Smart Tags” tab.
3. Uncheck “Label text with smart tags”.
4. Uncheck “Show Smart Tag Action Buttons”.
5. Click “OK” to close the dialog box.
6. Select “Tools” then “Options”.
7. When the multi-tabbed dialog-box “Options” appears, click the “View” tab.
8. Uncheck “Smart tags”.
9. Press “OK” to close the dialog box.