I found several articles about adding ScreenTips in Word when I searched the Internet. All those articles are telling the same trick, which requires adding hyperlinks to bookmarks. That was exactly not what I wanted. Very lucky, I learned another way of adding tooltips, it uses Field Code: AutoTextList.

Say, let’s make a Field of type AutoTextList (in Word 2010) by the following steps:

  • switch to Insert Tab
  • click on Quick Parts (in the Text group) to pop the menu
  • then select the Field… to open the dialog
    • within Category: (All), have AutoTextList selected
    • type “Hello, world!” in the New Value box
    • tick the ToolTip checkbox and type “This is from mars!!” in the box
    • click Ok

The result will be like this (on macOS):

AutoTextList-Tooltip

If you switch to Update Field mode by Alt+F9 (Windows) or Option + F9 (macOS), you will see the underlying code like this:

{AUTOTEXTLIST   \t "This is from Mars!"}

You can change the tooltip by modifying the text after \t in the braces. Once you are done, switch back by pressing Alt+F9 (Windows) or Option + F9 (macOS).

It is an elegant way to add tooltips to text in word!