# MS Word: Restricting format changes to selected text **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 14, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-word-restricting-format-changes-to-selected-text/564121 "2010-12-14T15:34:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-word-restricting-format-changes-to-selected-text/564121/1 "2010-12-14T15:34:51Z")
I don’t know when this started happening – possibly when I switched over to Microsoft Word 2007 – but I find on both my PC at work and my Mac at home a really annoying feature. When I select a portion of text – I’ve noticed it when doing it with an entire paragraph – and I make some kind of formatting change, such as boldface (or anything in the font menu) or margins – it applies the change to the _entire freaking document_ instead of just to the selected text. If I immediately do an “undo” it reverses this and keeps the change only in the selected text, but I want a way to turn off this pointless and annoying feature. I haven’t been able to find anything in the preferences menus. Who ever thought it was a good idea to apply formatting changes to the entire document when only a portion of the text is selected? Any ideas? Any help? Any commiseration? ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-word-restricting-format-changes-to-selected-text/564121/2 "2010-12-14T15:47:13Z")
I’m not going to be much help… but somehow you’ve set up your document so that this will happen. I come across this with some foundations that I apply to. If most of the “ribbon” is grayed-out (i.e., you cannot change the paragraph formatting, etc.) then this is what you have inadvertently done. When a document is set up this way, you can only select and change blocks of text. Does this happen EVERY time you set up a new document? If so, you have some default checked that you need to find and uncheck. I hope some Word guru will step in here and help out. When I had to switch to Word 2007 I hated it with the intensity of 1,000 suns. Now I only hate it with the intensity of 492 suns. It makes simple things very complicated. There are some sites that take you through the changes to Word 2007. I spent some time looking at those and cursing when it first came out. Sorry I couldn’t be more help. But there IS a way to set up a normal document like you’re used to and make the formatting changes as in days of yore. ---
**Author:** ![arseNal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@arseNal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arseNal)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-word-restricting-format-changes-to-selected-text/564121/3 "2010-12-14T15:50:19Z")
A little googling gave me this … [One Change Affects Everything (Microsoft Word)](http://word.tips.net/Pages/T000569_One_Change_Affects_Everything.html) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-word-restricting-format-changes-to-selected-text/564121/4 "2010-12-14T15:52:36Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > but somehow you’ve set up your document so that this will happen. I’m pretty sure I haven’t. Other people around here have noticed it too. Every time they apply some kind of formatting change to a paragraph, it affects the whole document unless they immediately follow up with an “undo.” > [@](#): > > If most of the “ribbon” is grayed-out (i.e., you cannot change the paragraph formatting, etc.) Nope. > [@](#): > > Does this happen EVERY time you set up a new document? No, it happens with every single document regardless of the source, whether I started it myself or someone else did. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-word-restricting-format-changes-to-selected-text/564121/5 "2010-12-14T16:20:38Z")
Thanks, Arsenal. That “automatically update” thing was it. Good grief, who ever thought that was a good idea? ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-word-restricting-format-changes-to-selected-text/564121/6 "2010-12-14T16:52:37Z")
Glad you found the answer. If Lewis Carroll had attempted to write ‘Through the Looking Glass’ in Word2007, he never would have found his way back to the real world.