Word Configuration Options to Uncheck

Applies to: Word 2003, 2007

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Word 2007

Once in a while, our clients ask our recommendations to Word's various configuration options. In this Tip, we'll take a brief look at a few of the choices available from the Office Orb | Word Options, and explain our rationale for them. Please note this is based on use of Word 2007 and may apply differently—or not at all—to earlier versions of Word.

In earlier versions of Word, we recommended five options be disabled: "Allow fast saves", "Embed True Type fonts", "Embed linguistic data", "Embed Smart Tags", and "Disable features introduced after…". Fortunately, with the release of Word 2007 a couple of these features ("Allow fast saves" and "Disable features introduced after…") are no longer in existence allowing us to forget the pain they caused.

This leaves us thinking about the embed options available in Word 2007. There can be significant drawbacks to embedding anything in a document. One, of course, is that file size increases. Other reasons for not "embedding" are:

• Standard 'True Type' fonts (such as 'Times New Roman', 'Arial', etc.) are so readily available these days, there's really no point in embedding these. The embedding of non-standard fonts may carry restrictions associated with copyright protection, in some cases resulting in documents that others are not permitted to edit.

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  "Linguistic data" refers to things like speech (from text-to-speech or speech-to-text applications or add-ins) and handwriting. These are features not widely used among our clients, as far as we know, but it's just as easy to cast a wide net and disable anything that includes the word "embed."
• "Smart Tags" have been seen to cause severe problems in documents, especially those that "travel" from one version of Word to another. These problems can extend to being unable to even open a document that contains them. DocXtools has procedures which will remove existing "Smart Tags" as well as turn this feature off so that no new ones are inserted.

However, with the introduction of the Office Orb (Office button) and the relocation of the Word Options, the remaining configuration options are more challenging to locate. All of the configuration options for Word 2007 are now located under the Office Orb button. When the Office menu displays, the Word Options button is available at the bottom right.

For this tip, we will be working with the "Save" and "Advanced" groups. Upon accessing the Word Options, you will see it grouped like this:

Uncheck "Embed fonts in the file" Under the Save group, navigate to the section "Preserve fidelity when sharing this document:". You have the option to make this change for the current active document or for All New Documents. We suggest you select "All New Documents."

Uncheck "Embed linguistic data" and "Embed Smart Tags" Under the Advanced group, navigate to the section "Preserve fidelity when sharing this document:". You again have the option to make this change for the current active document or for All New Documents. We suggest you select "All New Documents".

Word 2007 provides a quick way to review your document to see if there will be compatibility challenges when moving the document from Word 2007 to an earlier version. The Compatibility Checker is located under the Office Orb | Prepare | Run Compatibility Checker. The Compatibility Checker will review your document and summarize the elements in your document that will behave differently in earlier versions.

APPLIES TO: Microsoft Office, Word 2007

CONVENTIONS USED: Information regarding the Word 2007 features identified in this article use the following navigating conventions:

Word 2003

Once in a while, our clients ask our recommendations to Word's various configuration options.  In this Tip, we'll take a brief look at a few of the choices available from the Tools | Options |"Save" tab, and explain our rationale for them.  Please note this is based on use of Word 2003 and may apply differently – or not at all – to earlier versions of Word.

Uncheck "Allow fast saves" Fast saves append a user's changes to the end of a Word file, rather than rearranging the file with changes "in place", or where they actually occur.  This increases the file size beyond what it needs to be, makes Word work harder to organize it correctly and increases the chances for a document to become corrupt.  Once this situation has been created, the only way to fix it is to force a "slow" save.  Those who have used DocXtools for any length of time are probably aware that the "Coffee Cup" button will do this for you. As a user, you can accomplish a complete or "slow" save by moving to the end of the document, typing an "X", deleting it, then doing a File | Save.

Uncheck "Embed TrueType fonts" and "Embed linguistic data" There can be significant drawbacks to embedding anything in a document.  One, of course, is that file size increases.  Other reasons for not "embedding" are:

• Standard 'True Type' fonts (such as 'Times New Roman', 'Arial', etc.) are so readily available these days, there's really no point in embedding these. The embedding of non-standard fonts may carry restrictions associated with copyright protection, in some cases resulting in documents that others are not permitted to edit.
• "Linguistic data" refers to things like speech (from text-to-speech or speech-to-text applications or add-ins) and handwriting. These are features not widely used among our clients, as far as we know, but it's just as easy to cast a wide net and disable anything that includes the word "embed."
• "Smart Tags" have been seen to cause severe problems in documents, especially those that "travel" from one version of Word to another. These problems can extend to being unable to even open a document that contains them. The 'Update to 2003" button in DocXtools will remove existing "Smart Tags" and turn this feature off so that no new ones are inserted.

Uncheck "Disable features introduced after" "Disable features introduced after…" can often be ticked "on", especially when a document's "Recommended Options" (under 'Tools | Options | Compatibility) are set to Word 97.  Many have found this an extremely-persistent setting that must be turned off again and again.  The most successful (though not foolproof) technique we've found for dealing with it manually is to set the "Recommended Options" to your current, non‑Word 97 version of Word, uncheck the "Disable features introduced after…" checkbox, click the "OK" button to dismiss the dialog, then immediately save the document.  The 'Discover' feature of DocXtools can be used to find and fix this issue more easily.

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