If I have the following two lines in a Word document:

abcd
efgh

and I select abc and replace it by pasting ABC, the result is as expected:



ABCd
efgh

However if I select abcd and paste ABCD the result is

ABCDefgh

That is, if the selection goes to the last character in a line, Word automatically selects the following cr/lf character as well with the result that the character is eliminated after the paste. How can I prevent Word from doing this? (Under Advanced Editing Options I have the box "When selecting, automatically select entire word" unchecked.)

Click the ¶ button in the Paragraph Group on the Home Tab to display the non-printing formatting characters, then when you select the text ensure that you don't select the end of line character.

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Graham Mayor - MS MVP (Word) (2002-2019)
Visit my web site for more programming tips and ready made processes www.gmayor.com

Thanks for the suggestion. However I've already done that. In my example

abcd¶
efgh

if I drag the cursor over abc everything is fine. However if I drag it further, over the "d", then it also selects the ¶.

Press Shift+Left Arrow key to unselect the paragraph end mark.

Thanks Robert - that's a good-enough work-around. It would be nice, though, if Word would allow one to select, with the mouse only, the last word in a line without the following cr/lf character, in the same way that it allows the user the option of selecting only part of a word.

At File > Options > Advanced, clear the option "Use smart paragraph selection."

Attached Images

smartParaSelection.png (40.4 KB, 9 views)

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Coffent - that is an optional 'feature' that happens to be turned on by default.

You can set your options in Word to NOT automatically expand the selection to include the paragraph mark.

Go to File > Options > Advanced > Editing Options
Turn off "Use smart paragraph selection"
also turn off "When selecting, automatically select whole word" do do the same for individual word selections.

I see Stefan has already posted the fix but I left this post on because the Whole Word setting is also an annoyance for me.

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Perfect! Thanks to both of you, Stefan and Guessed.

It wasn't obvious, at least to me, that "Use smart paragraph selection" means "Don't automatically include the CR/LF character when selecting the last word on a line." In case anyone from Microsoft reads this who is in a position to change things, I'd like to suggest that it would be helpful if clicking or hovering the mouse over an option would bring up a "tip" explaining the option in more detail.