How to get a popup when hovering over text

[Ken412]

I want to produce a WORD document to distribute to end users when they have
problems. The document will look like a FORM. To the right of many of the
fields, I want to include the text string "Help?" and if the user hovers the
cursor over this text string, I want to make a small window (or text bubble)
pop-up automatically (no click) in which I can supply details on how to
complete that field in the form.

How do I make a window/bubble automatically appear?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Select the word Help and insert a comment.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Ken412]

Hi Doug,

Thanks for your response.

The only "Comment" I can find is for document review. However, this doesn't
work the way we want it to. Is there another type of "comment" that I have
not discovered yet, that does what we want? I.e. pop up a window or bubble
automatically when the end user hovers over a piece of text? Somewhat like
tooltips that pop-up (when enabled) when the cursor hovers over an icon in
the ribbon (where no mouse click is required).

Thanks in advance for any further help.
Ken

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

If you do not have Balloons displayed (Tools>Options>Track Changes), then
when you hover the mouse over the word in respect of which a comment has
been inserted into the document, a pop up will appear to display the text of
the comment. If it is for the purpose of providing help, the inclusion in
the popup of the name of the person who created the comment and the data and
time at which they did it should not be an issue.

While you can run a macro to remove the name of the person making the
comment, you cannot remove the statement of the date and time at which the
comment was made.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Jay Freedman]

There's another trick that might give slightly better results.

- Insert a bookmark covering the piece of text. I haven't checked, but I think
the maximum amount of text that will work for this trick is about 250
characters.

- Insert a hyperlink that points to the bookmark (which will be listed in the
hyperlink dialog as one of the "Places in this document"). By default the
display text of the hyperlink will be the same as the text (this is where the
character limit takes effect). In the Hyperlink dialog, click the ScreenTip
button and enter the text for the popup.

Depending on the user's settings, the bottom of the popup will say either "Click
to follow link" or "Ctrl+click to follow link". At least that's less intrusive
than the name/date in a comment balloon. If you do click, it will just go to the
bookmark, which is the same place as the hyperlink, so it appears that nothing
happens (except that the first time the link changes from blue to violet).

The truth is that Microsoft has never provided any sort of custom popup help
feature, so we're stuck with these imperfect workarounds.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
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