How to stop Word (2016) from selecting the entire table cell with the mouse

Question

I'm conducting a task that entails selecting a few words from a table cell in order to highlight them. I'm doing this hundreds of times over a number of different documents. The amount of text in the table makes the keyboard impractical. If, whilst I'm highlighting part of the final line of a cell, my mouse gets too close to the cell border, the entire cell contents become selected. Is there a way to disable this behaviour, or do I just need to slow down and hone my mouse skills?

Answer 1

According to my test, this only happens if the mouse touches the separator line between columns.

You may click at the starting position and, while holding Shift, click anywhere in the empty space between the text and the column separator. This will select the text to the end of the cell. But if the selection starts in the middle of a word and then crosses word boundaries, the default action of Word is to select the entire first word.

Answer 2

From what I read here, no one has an answer to the question. They answer for a WORD and a PARAGRAPH, but either no one reads the question, or no one knows an answer.

We don't want to click on the first and last letters of what we want to delete or move

we don't want to stop whole words or whole paragraphs from being selected

I already have the 'select entire word' and 'use smart paragraph' check boxes unchecked

Based on the number of times superusers have answered a question that wasn't asked, my conclusion is that there is no answer. That's my answer to the question.

Answer 3

You should change the default selection mode in Word, see Stop MS Word from selecting more than I want for details ('Under File/Options/Advanced, there is the option 'When selecting, automatically select entire word'. It is on by default, you can switch it off.').
That way, the cell gets not automatically selected (you'd have to double-click it to still get the whole cell, if you wanted that)

Answer 4

I realize that if you are in Outline mode, this problem occurs. However, if you are in the Print Layout mode, it is possible to select part of the text without selecting the whole cell.

Answer 5

I had a similar problem and discovered that the material in the chart was linked to another document. When I broke the link to the other document, this resolved all of the data in the chart being selected when you selected one item. I installed the Edit Links button onto the quick access tool bar to access the edit links dialog box.

Answer 6

-select the whole table. -under the "home" tab click on the "Borders" pop-up menu (it's a 2x2 square with dotted lines) -click on "none" -while still having the whole table selected, click on the "table layout" tab, then click on the first button on the left, "gridlines"

that should do it. it was driving me mad too.

Answer 7

The common wisdom, to uncheck 'select entire word' and 'smart paragraph' has nothing to do with the question, which remains unanswered.

The issue arises when dragging the cursor into a border (Whether border is visible or not) It has zero to do with word or paragraph selection.

If you drag the cursor into a border the whole cell's contents are highlighted, along with the contents of the neighboring cell - that is the issue.

Now MVPs - who can address the actual question?

Evidence of common wisdom applied to no effect

Cursor hitting border triggers the effect

Answer 8

File, Options, Advanced near the top, sixth check box uncheck the use smart paragraph selection