Working with Smart Tags

Move your mouse pointer over purple underlined text (a phone number in this example); a Smart Tag Actions button appears.

Point to the Smart Tag Actions button and then click the down arrow that appears to its right to display a list of possible actions.

Click the action you want to perform. In this example, choose Add to Contacts to create a new Outlook contact with this phone number without leaving Word.

Outlook's Contact dialog box opens with the phone number inserted. Fill in the person's name and other information, and then click the Save and Close button.

INTRODUCTION

Word has a penchant for littering your text with various gizmos that give you access to tools it thinks you might find handy. The purple dotted underlines and little "i" buttons are the subject of this task (see Part 8 to learn about the red and green wavy underlines). These visual elements represent smart tags . Word marks certain pieces of text it recognizes, such as names , addresses, financial symbols, and so on, with smart tags to indicate that you can perform actions on those pieces of text. Here you'll see an example of using a smart tag to enter contact information into Outlook.

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Using Additional Buttons

Two types of buttons may pop up in your text: a lightning bolt and a clipboard. The first is the AutoCorrect Options button; you will learn about it in Part 8. The second is the Paste Options button, which you will learn about in Part 3.

To choose what gets marked as smart tags, choose Tools , AutoCorrect Options , click the Smart Tags tab, mark/clear the appropriate options, and click OK .

To remove an individual smart tag from a piece of text, click the Smart Tag Actions button and choose Remove this Smart Tag .

To remove all smart tags from the current document, choose Tools, AutoCorrect Options, click the Smart Tags tab, click Remove Smart Tags, and click OK.

To turn off the smart tags feature, clear the Label text with smart tags check box from the Smart Tags tab and click OK .

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Eliminating the Purple Underlines

If you want to use the smart tags feature, but you don't want to see the purple dotted underlines on your text, you can open the Tools menu and choose Options , click the View tab, and clear the Smart Tags check box. The Smart Tag Actions button will still appear over text that the smart tags feature has recognized, but you will no longer see purple underlines.

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Getting More Smart Tags

Many companies have designed smart tags that you can download from the Web. To see what's available, choose Tools, AutoCorrect Options , click the Smart Tags tab, and click the More Smart Tags button.