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Bury Clippy forever

Gregg Keizer ZDNet US

Published: 08 Jul 2002

Clippy's come back from the dead…

"When someone told me that Clippy (Microsoft's relentlessly cheerful, animated, paper clip-shaped Office Assistant) was gone forever, I danced on his grave. But suddenly he was back, still animated, and far too chipper on a Monday morning. How can I get rid of him for good, and how can I get Office XP to deliver help the way I want it?"

Analysis

Office XP's help system suffers from several flaws -- the notorious Office Assistant is just the most notable. Here’s a couple of other complaints about Office XP's help: the Help window tends to cover up a substantial part of the document window; and there's no way to get rid of the ‘Ask A Question’ box -- the tiny, one-field toolbar at the top right of every Office application that sports the ‘Type a question for help’ prompt.

With a bit of tweaking, however, you can train Office XP’s help to do what you want.

Advice

Office XP is the first Microsoft suite that turns off the nagging Office Assistant -- a.k.a. ‘Clippy’ -- by default. But Clippy can come back from the dead with disturbing speed if you or someone else activates him.

To get rid of the Office Assistant, right-click the cartoon character paper clip, and then choose Options from the resulting pop-up menu. Clear the check box beside the ‘Use the Office Assistant’ box and click OK.

Use the Office Assistant dialogue box to banish Clippy from your desktop.

You can also permanently exorcise the assistant so that no one using the computer can resurrect him. Here's how. From the Start menu, select Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs; highlight Microsoft Office, click ‘Add or remove features’ and hit Next. Under Office Shared Features, find Office Assistant, and then click the small arrow and choose Not Available. Click the Update button to uninstall the assistant.

Good-bye Question box

Want to dump the Ask a Question box in an Office XP application, too? Microsoft makes this a bit harder but it’s still possible. Choose Tools > Customize. Leave this dialogue open but right-click in the Question box -- it's at the upper right of the window, across from the Help menu. Uncheck ‘Show Ask a Question Box’ to hide it. Close the Customize dialogue box.

You can banish the Ask a Question box via the Customize dialogue box, if it’s surplus to your requirements.

If you want the Question box back, use Tools > Customize again, but this time, check ‘Show Ask a Question Box’ after right-clicking the box on the menu bar.

Help that won't hinder you

There's also a way to make the Help window behave. But this time you will have to tinker with the Registry -- something we don't recommend unless you really know what you're doing. If you press F1 or call up help from the Help menu of any Office application, the Help window shoves aside the working document window to make room for itself -- more than likely covering up some of your text, spreadsheet or presentation. Microsoft has a reason for this apparent madness: to make sure that you can read an explanation or step-by-step instructions and work on your document at the same time.

By default, the Help window attaches itself to the right side of the screen. If you prefer it on the left, select Run from the Start menu, type ‘regedit’, and press Enter. Find this item:

Hkey_current_user\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Common\HelpViewer.

In the right-side pane, double-click the Docked State key and type ‘1’. Click OK and close the Registry Editor. Now launch an Office XP application: the Help window is attached to the left side of the screen.

To keep the Help window from shoving around your Office XP applications, resize and position it as you would any window so that when it appears, it doesn't obscure your application. Then close the Help window. From this point on, the Help window will appear in this smaller form and in this location on the screen in any Office program.

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