This overview will explain the various options for the “Word Completion” feature in Open Office – including how to disable it.
Automatic word completion allows you to hit a key (by default the Enter key) to automatically type out the rest of a word for you. In Open Office, it only occurs after you type a word for the second time in a document, and if that word is a certain number of characters long.
Here’s how to configure Word Completion so that it best suits your needs – or how to turn it off, if that’s what you’d prefer.
- Click Tools from the top menu and then AutoCorrect Options… from the list of options.
- Click the Word Completion tab.
- From here you can disable Word Completion entirely if it’s a feature that gets in your way more than it helps. To do so, just remove the check from the Enable word completion box and click OK
- As mentioned earlier, the default way to accept a Word Completion suggestion is to hit the Enter key when a word is ready to be completed. If you’d prefer to use a key other than Enter, you’re in luck. You can change the key by clicking the Accept with menu and selecting an alternative. My preference is Tab – it just feels more natural.
- Another helpful feature to save on keystrokes is to have OpenOffice append a ‘space’ each time you use Word Completion. To enable this feature, just place a check in the box labeled Append space.
- By default, Word Completion won’t “work” unless the word to be completed is 10 characters or longer. If you are a fan of Word Completion, you may want to lower the number of characters required in a word before Open Office offers to complete it. To do so, just choose the number of characters from the Min. word length drop-down list.
