Autocorrect Acting Strangely

[eddym]

Hi.

For some reason, this morning any autocorrect entry that I have saved in
italics, and I have lots, comes out automatically in bold. It doesn't happen
to any autocorrect entry I saved in italics today.

Is there any way of globally chaning them?

Thanks

 

[John McGhie]

You can globally change them by changing the properties of the Style that
was used to format them.

(Yes, you did use a style, whether you knew it or not -- Word doesn't have
any other kind of formatting. So if you manage your styles, all your
formatting will be correct and consistent.)

Cheers

Hi.

For some reason, this morning any autocorrect entry that I have saved in
italics, and I have lots, comes out automatically in bold. It doesn't happen
to any autocorrect entry I saved in italics today.

Is there any way of globally chaning them?

Thanks

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[eddym]

Thanks for your help, but could you please elaborate more. How do I know
which style it's in, and then how do I change that without changing
everything I've ever written in that style.

Thanks

 

[John McGhie]

To answer your second question first: If you change the properties of a
style, all the text with that style in the document changes. So if you want
to globally change Autocorrects, then you have to ensure they are in a
unique style.

The only other way would be to use Find/Replace to change their formatting.
That would mean searching for all instances of each Autocorrect, which is a
bit laborious.

The only way to determine which style an Autocorrect is in is to click in it
and look. Unformatted Autocorrects will adopt the formatting of the
surrounding text. Formatted Autotexts will show a different style name.

Hope this helps

Thanks for your help, but could you please elaborate more. How do I know
which style it's in, and then how do I change that without changing
everything I've ever written in that style.

Thanks

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[eddym]

Sorry for being dumb here, but I just don't understand.

My problem is - and it's intermittent as it can change without notice in the
middle of a document - that formatted autocorrect in italics show up in bold
when they shouldn't. I don' t understand how you're advising me to solve it.

 

[John McGhie]

Sorry, I left a few steps out...

Autocorrect can be saved as either formatted or unformatted.

If it is saved as Unformatted, it adopts the formatting of the text it lands
in.

If it is saved as Formatted, then the question is whether it was saved with
a style, or with direct formatting.

If it was saved with a style, the style formatting will replace the
destination formatting for that autotext.

If it was saved as direct-formatted, the formatting will be "added" to the
formatting of the destination text. Since it is a Boolean "addition", the
results can be a bit strange sometimes.

For example: If you have a paragraph with a style that includes BOLD, and
you add an autocorrect that has Italic, Bold: the two bolds cancel each
other and what you get is Non-Bold, Italic.

What I was suggesting was creating a style for your autocorrects, so you can
set all of them in a single change and the style formatting will stay the
way you set it.

However, from your description, the problem may be that the formatting
"under" the autocorrect is being changed. That could be because you delete
a following paragraph mark. If you do, the style formatting and the direct
formatting from the following paragraph will move into the first.

If the following paragraph formatting makes a change to the bold, that could
affect your autotexts.

Or it could simply be that the document is corrupt and strange things are
happening in it.

Is this one document, or several documents? If it's several documents, I am
not sure what is happening. If it's a single document, try a Maggie:

The Maggie:

1. Create a new blank document
2. Carefully select all of the text in the bad document EXCEPT the last
paragraph mark
3. Copy it.
4. Paste in the new document.
5. Save under a new file name and close all, then re-open.

This technique for de-corrupting is known as "Doing a 'Maggie'", after
Margaret Secara from the Word PC-L mailing list who first publicised the
technique.

Hope this helps

Sorry for being dumb here, but I just don't understand.

My problem is - and it's intermittent as it can change without notice in the
middle of a document - that formatted autocorrect in italics show up in bold
when they shouldn't. I don' t understand how you're advising me to solve it.

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[eddym]

Thanks for that. It's a lot clearer now.

This is a problem that happened when I was using Word for Windows both on my
desktop and on a laptop. Both were running XP. It has now migrated to Word
for Mac on my desktop. I therefore assume that the autocorrect file is
corrupt as I transfer all the autocorrects, using Macros9, from one to the
other.

Another strange thing that can happen intermittently - the above problem is
also intermittent - is that in the same documents certain autocorrects stop
working and others start. It's like the document starts going back in time
with old autocorrects working and new ones not. With this what I can do is
post a word from the part of the document that's working properly into the
part that's not, then overwrite it and continue... until it happens the next
time.

And one last problem. Sometimes my autocorrect seems to get tired and it
corrects the text to the next word in the autocorrect list. For example, if I
have bkm becoming "bookmark" in italics,bkms becoming"bookmarks", and bkn
becoming "beckoning" it will start turning bkm into bookmarks, and bkms into
beckoning.

I love autocorrect and I rely on it so much. I just wish it wouldn't annoy
me so.

 

[eddym]

There's a lot to take in and understand in what you wrote, and with my
current schedule it will certainly take ma at least a week. So while I can't
comment on what you wrote, I can at least thank you greatly for helping.

Thanks a lot.