How do I stop weird word autocorrection?

December 3, 2006 11:02 AM

I'm writing a document in Word and it has started capitalising all the words that begin in I, so I'm getting lots of Irritating sentences like this which are very Inconvenient. I've checked the autotext, autocorrect etc which all seem OK - possibly something to do with the dictionary as the I words are not being flagged up by the spellcheck? Or have I got some weird I virus?
posted by janecr to computers & internet (5 comments total)

First, make sure it's an actual Word issue, not font or anything.

When you type e.g. Impossible, does it show the lower-case i at first? If so, when does it change it to upper-case -- as soon as you type another letter, or only when you type the space after the word?

Does the problem go away if you disable all the Autocorrect options?
posted by cps at 11:28 AM on December 3, 2006

Go into Tools | Autocorrect
Find the entry that converts "i" to "I" and delete it.
posted by KRS at 1:40 PM on December 3, 2006

Word will convert i followed by a space to I, and will convert anything at the beginning of a paragraph to a capital. A paragraph is defined by Word as anything that ends with a hard return.
posted by theora55 at 7:46 PM on December 3, 2006

If all else fails: Find and delete your "Normal.dot" file. This is the template in which Word stores your personal settings. Search for it (should be in "C:\Documents and Settings\(user name)\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\Normal.dot" on Windows). Either rename this (such as "OldNormal.dot") or move it elsewhere. Restart Word. It will make a new Normal.dot file. Problem ought to be solved. Only downside is that you lose all other preferences.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:47 PM on December 3, 2006

(PS: If it doesn't work, you can safely replace your original Normal.dot file to get prefs back.)
posted by caution live frogs at 9:48 PM on December 3, 2006