MS Word

Stop Word from Searching the Web for Help

The Problem:

Almost every Help search I do makes Word 2003 hit the Web for the response rather than reading a local help file.

The Solution:

Word is usually searching both locally and on the Web. And not without reason: many of the best results for complex problems are in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (http://support.microsoft.com) rather than in the help files. But if you're looking for a quick answer to a straightforward question, or if you have a slow Internet connection, this can drive you up the wall.

To stop this annoyance, choose Help » Customer Feedback Options to display the Service Options dialog box and click the Online Content item in the Category list (see Figure 3-23). Clear the "Show content and links from Microsoft Office Online" box to prevent Office from accessing Microsoft Office Online at all. If you want to prevent Help from searching online but leave Microsoft Office Online available for other purposes, clear just the "Search online content when connected" box.

Figure 3-23. The Service Options dialog box is about the last place most people would look for the option that controls whether Word searches the Microsoft Office Online site for Help.