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Microsoft Word 2007 tells me I'm not connect to the Internet

Anonymous
2015-12-07T03:17:31+00:00

I'm using Word 2007. When I right-clicked a word and asked it to "Look Up" the word, the Research panel opened in the right column, but said "This service could not be searched because you are not connected to the Internet. Please connect and try again." Obviously, I am connected. Can anyone tell me what could be wrong? Maybe a setting gone wrong? I recently ran "Advanced Registry Optimizer 2010." Could that have messed something up?

Thanks for any help!

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-12-07T07:53:20+00:00

    Thank you for your speedy reply, Doug. I did go to the Privacy Options when I read it from another post for someone having a similar problem. I did have the box checked for "Search Microsoft Office Online for Help content when I'm connected to the Internet."

    Here's something I found out. The word I was looking up was "yippee." It's a listed word in Webster's, so I didn't see any reason it shouldn't be listed with Word's dictionary. After driving myself nuts thinking Word isn't connected to the Internet, I tried looking up other words and the Research section opened as normal with the definitions from the Internet. It was just baffling with the word yippee that it would tell me I'm not connected to the Internet (but it connects just fine with another word search) when maybe it just didn't have the word in its system. It's just odd.

    Thanks again for your help. :)

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  1. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 322.9K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-12-07T04:10:49+00:00

    Have a look at the settings under Office Button>Word Options>Trust Center>Trust Center Settings>Privacy Options

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-18T18:52:45+00:00

    Indeed, a word that is not in the dictionary will not produce a result and gives you "This service could not be searched because you are not connected to the internet" (which apparently is a lie), nor will it give use suggestions for an applicable word.  This is true even if the word through the proper application of a prefix, suffix or other rule is used to make an acceptable word in the english language, or is in some specific fields is a common word.  

    Therefore, one can independently search the internet to see if the word form is considered acceptable as an english word in use even though Word marks it as a misspelled aka an unknown word and therefore states "you are not connected to the internet". In other words, it's the user's fault, and not the effect of a dinky dictionary or too old of an application to use resources correctly.  In my opinion, this feature behaved before I updated to Windows 10 from Windows 7, which is why I'm here and new to the problem.

    Example:  the word decoherence used in quantum physics is an acceptable word, de-coherence  is also corrected on the internet to decoherence.  While decoherence does not get marked as misspelled in this text box.   In my case, word never accepts decoherence as an acceptably spelled word unless I add it to the dictionary by right clicking the "misspelled" word, and selecting Add to Dictionary.

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