When typing dates or rankings in Microsoft Word, you frequently use ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th). The exact moment you press the spacebar after typing “1st”, Word’s AutoFormat engine violently intercepts the text and automatically shrinks the “st”, pushing it up towards the top of the line to create a typographical superscript (1st).
While this superscript styling looks elegant on wedding invitations and formal certificates, it is heavily frowned upon in technical writing, legal documents, and strict academic formatting styles like APA and Chicago. These style guides explicitly demand that ordinals remain on the baseline (1st, not 1st) because superscript characters disrupt the vertical line spacing of the paragraph, making dense text significantly harder to read.
You can dive into the AutoFormat options to explicitly disable this specific typographical rule, forcing Microsoft Word to respect the raw, baseline characters you actually typed.
How to Stop Word from Superscripting Ordinals
You must uncheck the specific replacement rule within the AutoFormat As You Type settings.
- Open your document in Microsoft Word.
- Click on File in the top-left corner of the ribbon.
- Click on Options at the bottom of the left sidebar.
- In the Word Options window, select Proofing from the left-hand navigation pane.
- Click the AutoCorrect Options… button in the main pane.
- A new dialog box will open. Click on the tab labeled AutoFormat As You Type.
- Look under the very first section labeled “Replace as you type.”
- Locate the checkbox labeled Ordinals (1st) with superscript.
- Uncheck this box.
- Click OK twice to close both windows and save your changes.
Microsoft Word will instantly stop interfering with your numbering. The next time you type “1st”, “2nd”, or “15th”, the letters will remain perfectly level with the surrounding text, ensuring your document adheres strictly to standard academic and legal formatting rules.