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Q: In Microsoft Word, Office 365, there is a problem with a drop down menu when I misspell a word. The menu shows the suggested spelling of the word in question at the top of the menu. However, near that is a choice to ‘place’ that word in the dictionary. More than once I have tried to move the cursor to the suggested spelling, which is the correct spelling, but instead clicked on the ‘place in dictionary’ near the correct spelling. When that happens, I now have a misspelled word in the dictionary and I have no idea how to get out. Also, it would be nice if I could change the menu choices placement in the drop down menu to get them away from each other. Do you know how to do either or both?

– John C.
Niceville, Florida

A: Do I know…what?  Why, I’m “The Geek,” John!  If I don’t know, I go and find out!  The answer to your first question is easy.  You can get access to the contents of the custom dictionary by clicking File > Options > Proofing from within Word.  Click the button that says “Custom Dictionaries…” to get a list of your dictionaries.  Select the one you want to modify, click “Edit Word List…” and edit to your heart’s content.

The answer to your second question is a little more difficult.  Microsoft makes their Office products to be extremely customizable.  Although it’s not necessarily the best idea to do so, you can theoretically add or remove just about any function from any menu in the user interface.  My caution is because customizations that you make don’t follow you from machine to machine, and if you get used to doing things your custom way, you may find yourself lost when trying to do the same function on another computer.  Also, when it’s time to install a new version of the software, your customizations will quite likely be wiped out.  So, tweak it up if you like, but I advise against making wholesale changes.

Now, while it is very easy to make changes to the menus and ribbon in the main interface, changing options in the pop-up context menu is another matter.  It is possible, but it’s a task intended for Microsoft Office developers, since it requires knowledge of XML, and no small amount of programming skill.  If you believe you’re up for the task, I’ll get you started by pointing you to tinyurl.com/IGTM-0465A, which is a technical article in the Microsoft Office Dev Center entitled Customizing Context Menus in Office 2010.

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 Q: I use Yahoo! as my email client on my Dell desktop computer. When I send an email with Yahoo.com, when the receiver replies, it registers and is sent to username@outlook.com instead of username@yahoo.com. I have never opened an account in Outlook.com. When I try to open Outlook.com it asks for my username and password which I don’t have so I can’t investigate. I’ve tried all my passwords and none work. How can I just use Yahooo.com to send and receive my emails? Note: I was using Windows 7 when this first happened. I upgraded to Windows 10 but the problem remained. So, I surmise that the problem is with Windows.

– Carl H.
Shalimar, Florida

A:  I believe you surmise incorrectly, Carl.  I surmise that the problem is in your Yahoo! Mail configuration, specifically the “Reply-To” setting.  It is a standard feature of modern e-mail to support an optional field that allows replies to be sent to an address other than the one from which the e-mail originated.  Here is a link to a Yahoo! Help page that will tell you how to change your reply-to address: tinyurl.com/IGTM-0465B.  Hint:  If you don’t enter a Reply-To address, by default, replies will be sent to the originating address.