Microsoft Word Settings You Should Turn Off

Much of our industry relies on plain text versions of transcripts which are fed into final production software to produce a pretty PDF version of the transcript. A crucial part of that step is that the text files must not contain any non-ASCII characters. Unfortunately, by default, MS Word has some settings that will introduce those characters into your documents when editing. This article will show you which settings to turn off in MS Word to prevent this issue.

Open Microsoft Word. There is no need to open a document. We can work from the screen pictured here.

Click the [Options] button at the bottom left of the window. You'll see the following.

From the list on the left side, select "Proofing". You should see the following.

Cick the [AutoCorrect Options] button. You should see the following.

Select the "AutoFormat" tab, which looks like the following.

Turn off all the options in the "Replace" section, as well as the "Automatic bulleted lists" option at the top. It should now look like this.

Now, select the "AutoFormat As You Type" tab, which looks like this.

Turn off all the options on this tab. It should now look like this.

Click the [OK] button to close the "AutoCorrect" settings. Then, click the [OK] button to close the "Word Options" window. You may now also close Word itself.

This should prevent any non-ASCII characters from being automatically inserted in your documents when you edit in Word. However, before you export your document to ASCII, it would be a good idea to open the document in AuoScript Desktop and check for any non-ASCII characters using the directions provided HERE.

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