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How do I... Turn off overtype with the Insert key in Word permanently?
Word users often complain about the inadvertent press of the Insert key, which toggles Word into overtype mode. Here's a look at two ways you can permanently turn off that annoying Insert key functionality, along with a compromise technique that might be the best solution of all. From TechRepublic

Date Sensitive Warning:
May 22, 2006
Word Exploit
A potentially serious nastie has been released which could affect Microsoft Office users.

ZERO DAY WORD BUG It's being called a 'Zero Day' flaw which is geek-speak meaning there's no patch for the security breach.

There's NO fix for the security hole in Office which the virus exploits which makes it more serious than a usual warning.

The good news is that the current versions of the nastie are not yet spreading and the anti-virus companies have quickly updated their wares to detect the new threat.

The bad news is that that the underlying security flaw is not patched so there's potential for the same or other virus writers to take advantage of the flaw.

Microsoft already knew about this problem and is working on a patch for Word. It was intended to release that patch as part of the monthly release (in this case June 13 ).

How it Works: 

A Word document can be infected with a Trojan Horse called Trojan.Mdropper.H, this nastie takes advantage of the un-patched security hole in Word.

The Trojan makes it possible to run a new program on your computer, in this case a 'backdoor' called Ginwui.

A Backdoor program lets other people take control of your computer. Ginwui doesn't do anything bad at first but there's the potential for backdoor to be used later. Ginwui 'pings' a web site so someone knows that the backdoor is installed.

Backdoors can be used to track keystrokes on your computer, forward copies of documents, emails or passwords or use the computer to send viruses or spam to other computer users.

What Versions Are Affected or should I say, infected:
At this stage it seems that only Word 2003 is affected but that's by no means confirmed.

If you have Word 2002 (Office XP) then an infected document is reported to crash Word. It seems the exploit doesn't work but the attempt will crash Word 2002.

Some unconfirmed reports suggest that the same or similar exploit also applies to Excel and Powerpoint files and not just Word.

All versions of Windows and Windows Server seem to be at risk from Windows 98 onwards, but this is limited by the fact that Office 2003 will only run on Windows 2000 or XP.

Having installed the Backdoor a 'clean' version of the document is opened so an unsophisticated user might think that there was no infection. For more details check out the Symantec web site among many others.

For more detail, click the MDropper & Ginwui links below:

MDropper: 
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/trojan.mdropper.h.html

Ginwui: 
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/backdoor.ginwui.html

See Also: Microsoft advises 'safe mode' for Word
Following at least one targeted attack that exploits a flaw in the Office application, company tells users to run it in restricted mode.

Word Vulnerability Update:
More information, including workarounds, is available for last week's big news. Learn more in the Word Vulnerability Update. Read this story

TOP WORD QUESTIONS

Microsoft's tech support team handles a few calls every now and then. Well, OK, they handle a few MILLION calls every now and then, but what's a few zeroes among friends? The Microsoft Knowledge Base includes a frequently-updated article that lists the ten most commonly asked Word questions.

If you were wondering about any of those questions, do yourself and the tech support folks a favor. Don't call -hit the Web and read the answers that the tech support folks themselves use. Hop over to
http://support.microsoft.com/support/Word/wd2000top.asp and click away

Found a broken link? Want to contact me about a problem or a solution? Click here

1. Hidden File Detector v1.9
   Word 97-2002 can not detect some hidden items in a document. Hidden File Detector xan.
2. I occasionally get e-mails asking why a document looks so different after deleting a section break in Microsoft Word. To tell you truth, I wouldn't know without seeing the before and after document, but Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 303333 may have the answer!
3. 11 Tips for Creating Tables in Word
   Microsoft Word tables may be the unsung heroes of the document-formatting world. Are you comfortable creating them? Become a Word expert with these 11 tips—ranging from simple to sophisticated—to get you started showing off your data in Word.
4. Office 97: Learn How to Use Web Find Fast
5. Word Activates Your A:\ Drive This Is How To Stop It
6. Make a launch file to connect to other documents on a burned CD
7. Create Custom Keyboard Shortcuts
8. Word 97, 2000: Create a Cover Letter and Resume in One File
9. TOP TIP: SPELL CHECKER
10. Ins and outs of bullets and numbering in Word - Off site content its all you ever wanted to know about Numbering and Bulleting.
    Microsoft Office Word 2003
    Microsoft Word 97, 2000, and 2002
11. Like playing with toys? If so, then you will want to take a look at WordToys. It is exactly what it says. There is a free based version that the author hopes you'll like so much that you will hype for the full featured pay for play version. Check it out, it's free!
12. Words shortcut list changes. How do I get it back?
13. Add Borders
14. Be Sure Borders Print
15. EXTENDING YOUR VOCABULARY IN WORD
16. QUICKLY CYCLE THRU WORD HEADING STYLES
17. PASTE UNFORMATTED TEXT
18. CHANGING WORD DOCUMENT DEFAULTS
19. RECOVERING PAST WORD DOCUMENTS
20. DISAPPEARING FONT SELECTION IN WORD
21. MOVE CLIPART OVER TEXT IN WORD DOCUMENTS
22. What are em dashes and en dashes? How do you use em? How do you create em?
23. SEARCH WITHOUT WILDCARDS
24. AUTOMATICALLY INSERT CAPTIONS WITH PICTURES IN WORD DOCUMENTS
25. Decorative Boarders in Word 97
26. Keystrokes for Word Alignment
27. PUTTING A MACRO ON YOUR TOOLBAR
28. RESIZING A PICTURE FOR OFFICE 97 PROGRAMS
29. Using Word to fill in scanned forms:
30.   " What's the difference in Word between changing the case of a word using the Change Case command and the 'All Caps' option in Format | Font? "

31. Repeat a Find without the dialog box getting in the way

32. WORKING WITH WORD'S AUTOCORRECT

    • Making AutoCorrect Do the Work For You  -  Off site content
      Takes you to Office for Mere Mortals - Archives

    • Making Autocorrect Do The Work For You, Part 2

      • Autotext

      • Autoformat

      • SmartTags.
        Available in Office XP Only

    • Auto correct Exceptions

      • Creating the Exception List

      • Initial Caps

      • Turning Off AutoCorrection

33. Windows - Alt Key Numeric Codes: 
34. RUNNING MORE THAN ONE COPY OF WORD
35. ADDING PAGE NUMBERS TO A WORD FOOTER
36. NO HEADERS AND FOOTERS ON A WORD DOCUMENT'S FIRST PAGE
37. INPUTTING TO A VARIABLE IN WORD 97
38. MAKING WATERMARKS IN WORD
39. PRINTING MULTIPLE WORD DOCUMENTS
40. TURN A WORD TEXT BOX INTO A WORD SHAPE
41. CORRECTING CAPS LOCK IN WORD
42. Tracking Changes in Word is simple, If you know the Tools - A Woody's Office Watch Solution
43. WHAT IS METADATA?
44. USING WORD'S GRAMMAR RULES
45. ADDING A WORKSHEET TO A WORD DOCUMENT
46. OUTLOOK STUMBLES WITH MAIL MERGE
47. What to do if the fonts become unintelligible-Microsoft Knowledgebase Article
48. Want to be a macro guru? Try this Microsoft Knowledgebase article
49. HYPHENATED NAMES IN WORD
50. ADDING TO WORD'S AUTOTEXT
51. FIND AND REPLACE DOUBLE SPACES IN WORD
52. SWITCHING BETWEEN WORD DOCUMENTS
53. CHECK THE STYLE IN WORD
54. GO BACK TO WHERE YOU LEFT OFF IN WORD
55. Using a Wildcard search in Word
56. CONVERT A TEXT BOX TO A SHAPE IN WORD
57. Reformatting in Word 97/2000
58. CREATE SPECIAL TWO-PART SHORTCUT KEYS FOR WORD
59. USE TABLES INSIDE A WORD TEXT BOX
60. AUTOCORRECT CORRECTION
61. How can I import and export all my AutoCorrect entries, so they can be transferred to another machine?
62. DRAGGING FROM EXCEL TO WORD
63. CHECK SPELLING, NOT GRAMMAR, IN WORD
64. USING A SCANNED SIGNATURE IN WORD FORM LETTERS
65. Stop Warping your mouse in large documents. Switch to sublight speed (It's a StarTrek thing). Make mouse selections in Word more manageable with these key mouse combinations.
66. WORD UNDERLINE TEXT APPEARS AS STRIKETHROUGH
67. OPENING A WORD DOCUMENT AS A COPY
68. FITTING A WORD DOCUMENT ON A SINGLE PAGE
69. SELECTING CELLS IN A WORD TABLE
70. WORKING WITH BORDERS IN WORD 97
71. REPEATING A FIND IN WORD DOCUMENTS
72. REPEATING A STYLE IN WORD DOCUMENTS
73. CONVERTING A TEXT BOX TO A SHAPE IN WORD
74. CHECKING INDENTATION WITH WORD'S STYLE LIST
75. No time to read a lengthy document? Have Word summarize it for you. Here is how
76. Number lists in Word 97 get all fouled up. Why?
77. THE LAST WORD IN FOOTNOTES
78. OFFICE FILE CONVERTER PACK
79. THE NEW ATTACHED TEMPLATE SECURITY EXPOSURE
80. FIXING THE PAGE MARGINS-When your footers don't print
81. MAKING WORD PICK UP WHERE IT LEFT OFF
82. AUTO-WIDTHS IN WORD AND ELSEWHERE
83. Need to add different foreign characters in your documents? Check out this article on making use of the AutoCorrect feature in word. Click here This is a downloaded RTF document.
84. A COUPLA QUICK MACROS
85. HOW TO REPEAT A FIND WITHOUT THE DIALOG BOX GETTING IN THE WAY
86. Squishy Justification - Make Right Justify a little bit tighter - here is how
87. Edit a Form Saved as a Word Template
88. THE FINAL WORD IN WORD TABLES - Maybe...
89. TRACKING CHANGES IN WORD 97 AND 2000
    • WORD'S DELETE KEY STOPS WORKING
90. Word Can't Count? Teach it!
91. FORMATTING EXCEL SPREADSHEETS INSIDE WORD
92. OVERRIDING WORD'S BUILT-IN MENUS AND COMMANDS - ALL VERSIONS
93. MULTIPLE REFERENCES TO A SINGLE FOOTNOTE
94. WORD OBJECT MODEL ODDITIES
95. TAMING WORD'S SHOWALL WITH VISUAL BASIC
    • A QUICK AND EASY SOLUTION
96. INTELLINONSENSE
97. FAST OVER-SCROLLING IN WORD
98. TIPS: REVERT TO DEFAULT PARAGRAPH FORMATTING
99. Remove Word's Pesky Horizontal Line
100. Winword's (Word) "/a" switch and how to use it
101. Moving A Paragraph Up And Down - Quicker!
102. Keep getting the error message "Word can not open this document template"? Click here, I'll explain.
     Hint, it has to do with an old Mocrosoft program  EZ-Photo.
103. Autoshape Defaults In Word
     Versions: 97, 2000, 2002, AND 2003
104. What to do if Word simply up and disappears
105. Inserting Fractions In Word
106. Place a web object into word which updates data over the internet
107. Word Sorting, sort of
108. MSWord 97 Shows Cursor on Pages When Bookmarking, Why?
109. Useful shortcuts for Word, MSWorks and Wordpad
110. That Word assigned Hot Link
111. Take the "P" out of Field Codes
112. Preserve blank lines in Word when you copy and paste
113. Create Your Own Templates in Word
     It would be nice to think that every document I create is original, but the reality is that I need to send a lot of form letters and standard documents. Learn how to create templates in Microsoft Word and you can save yourself (or your boss) hours of repetitious work.
     - Word Processing Guide James Marshall
114. Leaders:
     You know, those "........." thingies?
115. Keep Function Keys Always In View
116. Adding Watermarks to Your Word Document
117. Slashed Zeros in MsWord?
118. Word, Powerpoint, Access: Changing Pop-Up Menus
119. Word: Repeat Headings In Long Tables
120. View Your Outline Without Formatting
121. Rotating Drawing Objects
     Works with; Word, Excel, Powerpoint:
122. Replacing Font Formats With Word's Replace Dialog Box
123. Word: Columns -- Balancing Length, Defining Headlines

124. Trying to add Excel functionality to Word is an exercise in Sadomasochism.  
     Here is, I believe, the ultimate guide to Date field calculation in Word: [Off site content]
     {http://www.wopr.com/cgi-bin/w3t/showthreaded.pl?Number=249902}

125. Obliterate revision marks in Word - Off site, - The Crabby Office Lady

126. Ins and outs of page numbering in Word - Off site content
127. Changing Font Properties
128. Microsoft and Word Shortcuts and Templates
129. Indexing
130. Word: Double-Space Shortcuts
131. Indent paragraphs with one click
132. An Easy Way to Enter the English Pound or Euro Symbol
133. Hanging Indents..has nothing to do with "Hanging Chad's".
134. Replacing Ordinals And Superscripts
135. Custom Envelopes in Word
136. Change Spaces into Actual Indenting
137. Copy Word Document Without Hidden Text
138. Putting the List of a Folder's Contents into Word
139. Consistent Sentence Spacing
     Try this VBA Macro Script
140. Adding Parentheses
     Use this VBA Macro
141. Creating a Command List
142. What to do if Recent File List is grayed out in Tools | Option | General Tab
143. Printing Revisited

144. Word Section Breaks And Page Formats

145. Prevent Pictures From Moving In Word

146. Word Document Closes When you Click on Hyperlink to Another Document or Webpage Document

147. Add Numbers To Your Outline In Word

148. Text Boundaries

149. Making Autocorrect - Correct For You

150. Place A Break In A Numbered Or Bulleted List (Word 2002| 2003)

     • Line Number Formatting

151. Get The Sage English Dictionary and Thesaurus 1.0.5 - It is freeware.

152. Adding Current Date To A Template

153. Security Update For Word 2000, 2002

154. Kill Words Automatic Bullets & Numbering

155. Fast Paragraph Rearrangement

156. Sorting Paragraphs And More Using Microsoft Word

157. Create and format picture bullets in Word

158. How to use the mouse to change your Word document's margins

159. Link to another file in your Word document

160. Display blocks of text in your Word documents

161. Let Word's Equation Editor format your mathematical text

162. What was lost, is found.
     Words finding Magic

     • The wildcard feature has some powerful options beyond the standard * and ? options.

163. Eight Double-Click Tricks

164. Shortcuts In Reveal Formatting

165. Use frames to insert a Table of Contents anywhere in your Word document

166. Create a Table of Contents from any keywords or phrases in your Word document

167. Use Bullets In Single Line Of Text:

168. Use Replace to add text to existing text in Word

169. The Ellipsis

170. Sorting Lists in Word...a Refresher

171. Add Shadows To Paragraphs

172. Microsoft Word's Insert Button

173. Precise Tab Positioning On The Ruler Bar

174. Use Hard Spaces In Word

175. Shift+F3 in MS Word
     Its a Change Case Shortcut

176. Perform calculations in tables

177. Quick Tables

178. Customize Word text wrapping with Edit Wrap Points

179. Position a logo along the side of a page in Word

180. Anatomy of Word: Create a table of contents using defined styles - This is a TechRepublic How to and is off site:

181. Move or resize multiple Word objects at once

182. Quick Word Erase
     For all of you muse challenged keyboard punches

183. Balance Text Across Columns In Word

184. Number The Cells In A Word Table

185. Microsoft Office Assistance Word prompts me to save changes to the Normal.dot template _
     This link takes you directly to the Office How-to section of the Microsoft Website. It has pictures and everything.

     • See also: Disappearing Word Files the rest of the story

186. Make Columns Or Rows The Same Size In Word

187. Add Spacing Between Cells In A Table In Word