Want to display the Thesaurus in dialog box not task pane in Word

[Guest]

I have a user who uses a screen reading program and is having problems with
the way the Thesaurus shows up in the task pane. The keystrokes are more
complicated to use the task pane than it is to use a dialog box.

Is there a way to have the Thesaurus open in a dialog box like it did in
Word 2000?

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Kaytee

Yes, it is possible to get the Thesaurus to display in the old dialog box
rather than in the Task Pane.

To display the old dialog box, put the following tiny macro into your user's
normal.dot. For help in installing the macro, see
http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm.

Sub ToolsThesaurusRR()
Dialogs(wdDialogToolsThesaurus).Show
End Sub

This macro will intercept the command to display the task pane. If that
macro is in place, then Shift-F7 or Tools > Language > Thesaurus will invoke
the old dialog box rather than the new task pane.

However, the new Task Pane can use Thesaurus data that it gets from on-line
sources, and the old dialog box doesn't use the on-line data. So your user
may miss out on data from the new on-line thesaurus. To see the on-line
information, you can still use Tools > Research. So this should give your
user the best of both worlds.

Hope this helps. Write back if you need any further information.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Guest]

Thank you Shauna

This works great. At the risk of appearing greedy, is there another Macro
that will close the task panel when the dialog box is closed?

Kaytee

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Kaytee

You can close the dialog box by pressing Escape. You can close the task pane
by doing ctrl-F1 or View > Task Pane. Does that solve the problem?

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Guest]

Thank you Shauna. I should have noted the user is sight impaired. Now that
I have the keystroke this will work great for him.

Kaytee

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Kaytee

Great. I'm glad it will help him out.

Shauna

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word