control Word autoformat

[bkelly13]

Windows 11, Version 2019
I am reasonably sure I have MS Word 2019, but it won’t tell me. In the past users could click on help and the version would be displayed. Not any more. This is a problem. This same problem is in MS Excel, Outlook, and probably all Office products. How do I get these products to verify the version in use?


To the topic. Word does some automatic formatting and on this computer has become inconsistent. Near the top of the document there is: 1.<space or tab> Word indents the paragraph. A few paragraphs down is: 4.<space or tab> and Word does not indent the paragraph. I need Word to be consistent.

Hopefully the upload was successful and a shortened version of the document is shown with the error included.

Some searching derived the term “Turn off automatic formatting” In the first page examined the instructions are:
1. Select the File menu and select Options
“Options” is not under File. None of the options under File lead to “Options”
So, is this a version problem in that I don’t have the right version? I suspect not, just bad advice.
Another round of searches yields: To access AutoCorrect, you'll need to display the Word Options dialog box … Great, but where is the Word Options dialog box?
Another selection from Computer Hope's Free Computer Help, under a title “Microsoft Word 2007 to Word 365” has the same instructions, File -> Options. Again, its not there. I am moderately certain this computer is running Office 2019 so the instructions should be accurate. They are not.
When the paragraph marker is clicked to show formatting, paragraph 1 has the same character/formatting sequence as 4, but they are formatted differently.
What are the steps to disable automatic formatting? What steps might lead to getting the behavior consistent?

[Italophile]

Except for the title your document uses only the default Normal style, and you then rely on AutoFormat to give you the formatting you want.

That is not the way to achieve consistent formatting when using Word.

Modify, or create, Styles to provide the formatting you require and then apply them to your text. If you are creating similar documents on a regular basis, you should create a template (.dotx/.dotm) to start the new documents from. It will then have all the styles as you want them, and you can include any standard text you need as well.

Learn to used Word correctly and it will work for you instead of against you.

[bkelly13]

Charles, thank you for the link. Those pages help me find the answer I needed.

[Charles Kenyon]

• The Importance of Styles in Microsoft Word
• AutoFormat and AutoCorrect (Tame AutoFormat) by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP

[Charles Kenyon]

Glad to have helped.
By the way, to see the version information:
File > Account > About Word