How can I disable the Research Pane in Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010?

There is no way to disable the Alt+click for the research pane that anyone has found. However, you can use the mouse and Alt key easily without getting the research pane to mistakenly pop up.

Here's how:

Click on your table border first and start dragging, when you see that you have the border moving, then hold down the Alt key. You will be able to do your precise sizing.

And the research pane won't open!

Hope this helps.

Microsoft Word Research

Credit for the following answer goes to Jon Peltier, who's posted this solution to a number of other boards. I have no idea where/how he found the solution, but I don't care. It works, thank goodness. Now, if only Microsoft would just make it a toggle-able option in Excel Options...

Go to the VB Editor (press Alt-F11). Then, press Control-G (or go to View, Immediate Pane). Type the following in the Immediate pane, then press Enter:

Application.CommandBars("Research").Enabled = false

Even if you restart Excel, the Alt-Click will no longer produce the infuriating Research panel. If, for whatever reason, you want it back, just re-enter the command, using true instead of false.

This solution above only applies to the current session. If you close Word/Excel, and restart it, the effect is lost.

While you're in the Visual Basic editor, create a new "Module" then insert this code into the module after the "Option Explicit" text:

Public Sub AutoExec

Application.CommandBars("Research").Ena... = false

End Sub

This should cause this statement to Run every time you start the appropriate software (Word, Excel) and disable the darn alt-click Research pane forever. You'll need to set this macro up in each program individually (Word, Excel, etc.) to make it effective for that software.