Accidentally dragging and dropping a word or sentence in a Word document can be really annoying.
If you notice it happen, then you can usually fix it with the Ctrl + Z undo shortcut on your keyboard.
But if it’s not a feature that you ever mean to use, then our how to prevent text drag and drop in Word 2013 tutorial can show you how to disable it.
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How to Disable Microsoft Word’s Drag and Drop Feature
- Open Word.
- Select the File tab.
- Click the Options button.
- Choose the Advanced tab.
- Uncheck the Allow text to be dragged and dropped box.
- Click OK.
Our guide continues below with additional information on how to prevent text drag and drop in Word 2013, including pictures of these steps.
Working on a long document or report in Word 2013 is usually a great experience.
You have a number of tools at your disposal to simplify the process, and taking advantage of these tools can help to dramatically decrease the amount of time that you spend editing or writing.
But there are some features that are turned on by default which can cause you some headaches.
This is particularly true when you are using a laptop with a trackpad, and you have drag and drop functionality enabled.
This makes it easy to inadvertently select a string of text and drag and drop it to an incorrect location.
This can be frustrating and sometimes difficult to notice. If this is a problem that you are having, you can follow the steps below to disable text dragging and dropping in Word 2013.
How to Prevent Accidental Mistakes Caused by Drag and Drop in Word 2013 (Guide with Pictures)
This is a feature that is turned on by default in Word 2013 and is often the culprit if you find that a sentence or fragment of text is in a location that it should not be.
And if you don’t consciously use the drag and drop feature then it is only going to serve as a potential problem. Luckily you can follow this tutorial to quickly and easily disable the feature.
Step 1: Launch Word 2013.
Step 2: Click the File tab at the top-left corner of the window.
Step 3: Click Options at the bottom of the column on the left side of the window.
Step 4: Click the Advanced tab in the left column of the Word Options window.
Step 5: Click the box to the left of Allow text to be dragged and dropped to remove the check mark.
Step 6: Click the OK button at the bottom of the window to apply your changes and close the window.
Now that you know how to prevent text drag and drop in Word 2013 you can use your laptop to edit Word documents and not need to worry that you will accidentally move around some of the document text.
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If you don’t like the way your text looks in Word 2013, you can also change the default font in Word 2013.
Matthew Burleigh has been writing tech tutorials since 2008. His writing has appeared on dozens of different websites and been read over 50 million times.
After receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science he spent several years working in IT management for small businesses. However, he now works full time writing content online and creating websites.
His main writing topics include iPhones, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, Android, and Photoshop, but he has also written about many other tech topics as well.