NEW: How to Toggle Thesaurus Pane On and Off in Microsoft Word

Issue:

Shift + F7 opens Thesaurus Tool pane in Microsoft Word. But Shift + F7 does NOT close the pane by default and you are forced to lift your hand from the keyboard and use the mouse to close it.

2013 Solution:

The coded Macro solution here.

This solution, however, only works in the first instance of Word where the macro is instantiated, but breaks in other simultaneous instances of Word.

2016 Solution:

This solution uses a recorded keyboard macro to close the Microsoft Word Thesaurus pane.

Steps:
1. Open the Thesaurus.
2. Record new macro: [Alt-W, M, R] or View > Macros > Record.
3. Name macro something like CloseThesaurus_[ShiftF8].
4. Assign macro to Keyboard.
5. Assign new shortcut key [shift-F8] to this macro (hijacking it from the MSWord assignment).
6. Close Thesaurus (using mouse).
7. [Alt-W, M, R] to stop the recording.


This process works for closing Thesaurus pane, but may not work for closing other task panes.

Thanks to user BarbSevy on Microsoft forums for bringing this solution to light.

[Original post]

Travis Hiland