Removing highlighting expansion on find/replace in Word

Hi there,
I'm using a 13-inch MacBook (2 Ghz Intel core 2 duo) with Snow Leopard 10.6.3 and just installed Office for Mac 2011. In Word, when I run the find/replace function, the highlighted word blinks/expands at each instance of finding the selected word. I'd like to remove that expansion if possible and have a similar functionality to earlier versions of Word, where the word was just highlighted without any expansion.

Any ideas on how to do that? I've played around in Preferences but can't seem to figure it out. I also don't know if this is something that is particular to Snow Leopard, since I updated it recently (from Tiger).
Thanks very much for your help!
D

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "expands". I did a find - replace search on a document in Word 2011 and it acts the same way it did in Word 2008. It highlights the word and replaces it with the substitute.

Also your copy of Snow Leopard is not up to date. SL is currently at 10.6.8.

Thanks a lot for the response, chscag. Sorry I wasn't clear -- I mean that when I use the "find" function and it identifies a word, the highlighting around the word briefly "bulges" outward and then returns back to simple highlighting. (Sorry, I was misleading when I said find/replace; it's just in the basic find function.) I'd like to remove that effect if possible since I find it a bit distracting and do a lot of editing with the find function. In earlier versions of Word it just highlighted the word without that animation effect. Any idea how to do that?

Thanks for letting me know about updating to the most recent version, too.
Thanks,
D

Thanks for clarifying. But again, I don't see that in Word 2011 as it acts exactly the same as Word 2008. I really don't know what would cause that unless it's some sort of a hardware error. Does it happen with any other application or is it just Word?

Thanks again for your response. It's interesting that you don't see this effect in Word 2011. I went directly from Word 2003 to this, so I'm not sure about 2008.
I did notice that the same thing happens using Cmd+F in Safari, although not in Firefox. Could it be something that the OS does and could I possibly fix it there? (I don't think it's an error, as it seems designed to make you be able to really see the word you're looking for; I just find it distracting.)

Thanks,
D

ps I have updated my Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 now; but I am still seeing this effect in Word and in Safari.

I'm not currently using Snow Leopard but from memory I've never seen that happen when I was using it. And I had Word 2011 running in Snow Leopard before I upgraded to Lion. I also just tried Command F to do a search in Safari and it acts the same way as Word 2011. Just a plain highlight with no expansion bulge.

There may be something that's causing it to happen in your system. If you have any third party apps running in the background or running upon startup, turn them off to see if it goes away. Also try this: Open System Preferences, General, and change the highlight color from the default Red to another color to see if it does the same thing.

Thanks--I tried those things but didn't have luck.
To clarify, just in case we're doing slightly different things using "find" -- this happens when I am using the find/replace window in Word (now called "advance find and replace"). When I search for a word that appears repeatedly in the document, the highlighting bulges every time I press return (or click on "find next") -- on each subsequent instance of the word.
Anyway, it looks like there may not be a quick fix for this and I'm fine with living with it--thanks for your help!
D

I realize this is an old thread but did you ever find a solution?

I am experiencing the same pulsing highlight and I hate it and this is the only place I can find that is talking about it. Did you ever figure out how to disable this?
Thanks
sf

Hey sf,
Sorry to say, I never did -- but I can at least say that I've gotten used to it over time...argh! Good luck!

??? What do those "animation" check boxes in Preferences control?

Hey toMACsh, I have been all over the prefs three times and I cannot find anything about animations. Where to do you see them?
sf

slipperyfrog said:

Hey toMACsh, I have been all over the prefs three times and I cannot find anything about animations. Where to do you see them?
sf

Click to expand...

Gosh, short memory. I don't recall, and I'm not at a Mac at the moment. But, I'm using Office for Mac 2004, so maybe it's irrelevant anyway, but I can look later.

Word preferences

View tab
Text animation

General tab
Provide feedback with animation

No guarantee that those control the behavior sought. I was just asking a question.