Weird selection behaviour in Word 2010

Question

I am not a very avid Word user, so I stumbled across this: When selecting text with the mouse, Word automatically aligns the selection to word boundaries. Can I disable this behaviour? I usually click very precisely and want to select with character accuracy.

Answer 1

The behavior can be controlled in File → Options → Advanced → "When selecting, automatically select entire word".

You can also temporarily disable this behavior per selection by moving the mouse to the left after it extends the selection automatically.