Your questions

It seemed to expand correct in the word forum box here, just not in my word document.

If it expands correctly in other programs such as WordPad or Internet Explorer, that would indicate that Instant Text is functioning correctly. Do you have AutoCorrect disabled?

You may want to post this on the MS Word for MT's forum to see if anyone has a suggestion with regards to MS Word.

Looking to start using continuations. I think I read you have to use marker keys and have autospacing on in order for it to work. Is that correct, as I use neither.

You do not need to use marker keys for continuations, you can use the spacebar. However, you do need to have automatic spacing enabled in order to use continuations. If you do not want IT to insert spaces after punctuation, you can do so while still keeping automatic spacing enabled. For more information, please see the link below.

Kind regards,
Kristen