Having suffered at the stroke of Word’s auto-formatting madness for years, we feel your pain. You can disable Word’s automatic bolding and other auto-formatting by tweaking your AutoCorrect settings. Select Tools > AutoCorrect and click AutoFormat As You Type. Under Replace As You Type, remove the checkmark by *Bold* And _Italic_ With Real Formatting. Do the same under the AutoFormat tab.
As an alternative to disabling the auto-emboldener entirely, you can toggle the auto-formatting on and off, sort of. Just type Command-Z (Undo) after typing the second asterisk (immediately after the type converts to bold), and Word will take back the bold, displaying your asterisks in all their expressive glory.
Bonus tip: Note the Internet Paths With Hyperlinks checkmark in the AutoFormat As You Type and AutoFormat dialog boxes - people are always asking us how to turn that one off, and there it is, also susceptible to the mighty Undo.
