Word for Windows (Desktop Application)
Welcome to the Word for Windows (Desktop Application) feedback forum! This is the place for users to send us suggestions and ideas on how to improve.
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Provide an option to disable the "Welcome Back!" pop-up, or make it non-modal
When opening a Word document I'm presented with a "Welcome Back!" pop-up that lets me move to my last reading position. Though I've never wanted to use this feature, I have no problem with it.
Or rather--I would have no problem with it if it weren't input-blocking. I have to wait for the pop-up to disappear before I can type anything.
This may sound inconsequential, but I have some Word documents with reference material, and I'm frequently opening them for as quick a lookup as I can manage. As soon as I open them I hit Ctrl-F to search. My…
189 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Support Inserting Vector PDFs Without Compression
Currently when you go to insert - object and try and insert a pdf into a word document it is compressed so much that it becomes too pixelated for any professional use. The workaround is to convert a pdf file to a different file type and insert, but it would be nice if this wasn't necessary.
43 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Add character count to status bar
In the age of content creation with Word dominating the market, everyone can agree that character count is often more important than word count. And it's a pain in the neck having to click word count 500 times when you're writing just to keep checking the character count...
It begs the question - what are bloggers and hired writers using to write short- and medium-form content? Surely there are any number of use cases that require a large percentage of writers to use character count, such as myself and many others who've had this question, including proofreaders, people who create…
65 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Make the Microsoft Mathematics Add-In for 2016 and 365
Word and OneNote 2013 had a fantastic add-in for math. It allowed you to solve math problems, even complex formula, and then graph them in graphs that could have the variables manipulated. It was a great teaching tool that I have now lost. Please bring it back!
295 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Multilingual Composer (like on Facebook)
I think Microsoft Word, and other Microsoft Office products (Excel, Power Point, Sway, Access, etc) should have a way to easily manage multiple languages!
For instance, it should be easier than saving as and creating a new document! It could have a language switcher in which I choose in what language I'm seeing the document at the moment, and create a new language version.
Another useful tool would be a way to manage the translation process, marking parts in not-translated, automatically translated (needing review), and fully translated. And it'd be very cool to easily view the original text so I…
27 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Stop the scroll bar from fading in Word 2013
This is the most annoying, stupid design I have come across in a long time. I write long, long documents and I need to see the scroll bar all the time, but it keeps fading out. And yes, I have selected the "Show Scroll Bar function. This is a problem people have been complaining about since the introduction of Word 2013 and it still hasn't been fixed.
433 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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button for updating all fields in the entire document
You can have fields on several places: header, footer, body, text boxes etc. If you use CTRL + A and F9 to update all your fields, you will only update the fields in the body, not in header/footer and text boxes.
At the moment there is one work around: select 'file -> options -> display -> update fields before printing'. Next, whenever you do 'file -> export -> create PDF/XPS' and save it somewhere in a temporary directory, all fields (including header/footer and text boxes) are updated.
I was told this last step was not necessary and clicking 'print preview'…
137 votesThank you for the feedback! We’re investigating.
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Bring back Light & Medium Gray Theme Colors
Apparently these theme colors were removed, and I don't understand why - it makes no sense to reduce the amount of customization people can have over the software they choose to own.
I hate too much white - it tends to bother my eyes. And the Dark Gray theme is too dark, in my opinion. Bring back the other options, or at the very least, alter the Dark Gray to what it used to be in Office 2013.
263 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Free choice of typographical quotation marks
In german speaking countries different quotation marks are usual. The preferences in "Autoformat" only allow one preinstalled intelligent changing from " to opening or closing quotation mark in typographical style. In Germany and Austria these are primary 99 lower opening style and 66 upper closing style; but authoring books the >>chevron style<< is needed. In Switzerland typical << french guillemets >> are in use, but in education ist's the german standard 99/66.
For changing the quotation marks to the preferred style, it is neccessary to use individual Autocorrections or change all standard quotation afterwards by Find & Replace or Makro.…232 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Ink Editor: Ok, really neat. Now "tweak" it for educators.
Make an option to default to always assuming the inking should be retained rather than the edit actually applied. This is how educators would want to use it in order to markup papers.
Also when educators are marking up a paper, they are never changing anything. So circling should default to adding an educator's comment to the paper rather than selecting -- or at least the goal of selecting is only to mark which block of text the comment applies to.
"Cleaning up" editing marks when in educator mode would also be useful. So a sloppy human circle around text…
8 votes -
File > Save As > Create New Folder - PLEASE
When you go to save as and browse your team sites/libraries what would be great is to be able to create new folders in those libraries. Its a pain when you go to save something but then have to go into SPO to create the folder for you to then save into. This is across the whole office suite
44 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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71 votes
Thanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Recently Used List Sort order: Date vs Alpha
If you (MS) were going to "improve" the tool this way you really should have adhered to "traditional" standards and when changing something this fundamental also made a user controllable option to allow people who need alpha sort to be able to turn back it on.
This is actually the first mention I've seen of this "improvement". It alone is enough to make me serious reject switching to this version.
I haven't bothered trying 2016, simply because I didn't have enough empty space on my HD for it.
Yes, I can see where for some people "last used" is useful.…
106 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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'Worksheet' Tabs to Word
Word template should be redesign with ‘worksheet tabs’ similar to existing in the Excel Worksheet Tabs.
Then word will be facilitated to users to keep all relevant word documents in to a one doc rather open all doc files. Particularly such modification to word template may highly beneficial for the users who compiling manuals or any other large documents under different subjects but need to bundle up to a one place later.149 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Headers in Table not displayed in Navigation pane - fix this
For a long time, if you put a heading style inside of a table, it will not display in the navigation pane. This is a PAIN.
176 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Changing color of formatting marks
Editing would be so much faster if there were a way to display formatting marks in a different color than plain black. It confuses me when reading the text.
63 votesThanks for the great feedback! We will consider this feedback for a potential future update.
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Fix scrolling bugs
There's a growing group of people experiencing problems in touch-based scrolling for Word 2013 and 2016's Draft and Outline views. A fix would be much appreciated!
43 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Improve Highlighting
Make the full spectrum of colors that are available in Shading also available in Highlighting. I often use Highlighting to mark important or unusual text streams and I would like to search for particular colors of Highlighting .
121 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Allow "All Markup" as a default
Currently, Word opens documents featuring Track Changes in "Simple Markup" by default. Those of us who work with Track Changes for a living need to change every individual file to "All Markup." This gets extremely vexing. Please install a setting that will let us change the default.
100 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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Don't change keyboard shortcuts
For many many years, keyboard shortcuts remained standard as new versions of Office were produced. Now, long-established shortcuts do different things, such as Ctrl F opens the Navigation pane instead of the Find dialog box and Ctrl F2 opens the Print Preview options instead of the traditional Preview in Edit Mode. Leave the Shortcuts alone for goodness sake!!!!!
43 votesThanks for your feedback! We’re reviewing your suggestion.
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