Why can't I just place cursor midword to italicize it, as before?

[Guest]

In older versions of Word, you could put your cursor ANYWHERE in the word,
type Ctrl + I, and the entire word would be italicized (or bolded, or
underlined, depending on what you typed). Now in Word 2003, however, I have
to select the entire word. This is an extra step, which as a keyboard user, I
find takes more time, since I usually have to lift my hand, go to the mouse,
scroll across the word, go back to keyboard, type Ctrl + I (or mouse-click
the "I" button). When you do this over and over, it's annoying.

Am I missing something? All other word-processing programs seem to allow
this change in format without having to highlight (select) the entire word.

Thanks for any ideas!

 

[garfield-n-odie]

In Word, click on Tools | Options | Edit | check the "When
selecting, automatically select entire word" box | OK.