Autocorrect>Autotext for Outlook 2007, where did it go?

[Greg Gates]

Situation in the past:
For Outlook 2003, we would go Tools>Autocorrect>Autotext to find our stored
text information. For 2007, can't find it or our data of a lot of stored
information?

Explanation of what we did:
We used Autocorrect>Autotext as a method to store hundreds paragraphs of
text to be used in the body of a response message. These paragraphs, some
including images, are use to respond to customers addressing a specific topic
(ie responding to a person asking a question we have answered in detail
before).

For example, someone may ask about a diamond's clarity and what does it
mean? So we had a page of text (in Autocorrect>Autotext ) explaining that
topic in detail.

To type this text every time for every response, would be time consuming and
not very cost effective. So we would just go to "Autocorrect>Autotext" pick
the topic titled "Diamond's clarity detailed explanation with images
042705rev" The 042705 being the date we last revised the response text. We
then inserted it into the body of the message.


Questions for the difference between 2003 and 2007:
I can't find our Autocorrect>Autotext entries on Outlook 2007 or Word 2007
anywhere (which I think were part of the normal.dot file in Word 2003).

Please don't tell us this is a feature that just went away without warning?
Or instructions as to how to migrate it? If so we just lost hundreds of
hours of text and revisions. My guess is we are not the only ones using the
2003 Word/Outlook Autocorrect>Autotext function this way.

HELP:
Is there a way to migrate all our Autocorrect>Autotext 2003 entries, or is
that hundreds of hours keying over the past several years lost forever?


Thank you

Greg

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Greg,

It's still there. Tools, Options, Mail Format, Editor Options, Settings,
AutoCorrect Options. Or when you have an email window open, Office
button, Editor Options.
Outlook uses the NormalEmail.dotm file in your Documents and
Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates folder. I suppose
you should be able to open your old Normal.dot in Word, then save it as
a dotm file with all your AutoText stuff in there and then rename the
file into NormalEmail.dotm and put it in that folder so that Outlook can
use it.

Patrick Schmid

 

[BillR [MVP]]

Look in the Insert Ribbon in the Text Chunk. Autotext is now QuickParts. You
can add it to the QAT.

I think you will need to recreate all our "quick text". It shouldn't be too
hard but might be time consuming in your case. Paste them all into the one
email and then select and add each one.

The Word group might know of a quicker way.

Note: there is also a Text Box gallery which I think is basically the same
as what I've mentioned.

 

[Greg Gates]

Patrick

Thank you. I think we are almost there. Stukll need a bit of assistance:


I opened 2007 "AutoCorrect Options" "both ways as you suggested:
First way Word 2007:

Tools>Options>Mail Format>Editor Options>Settings>AutoCorrect Options

Second way Outlook 2007:
as an email window open, >Office button>Editor Options>AutoCorrect Options



[1] Both times I found the button for "Autocorrect Options"---no problem

[2] Both times the "Autocoorect Options" button took me to the next window
that has a set of Tabs on it

[3] BUT for 2003 the tabs were individually labeled:
----AutoCorrect
----AutoFormat as you type
----AutoText
----AutoFormat

[4] for 2007 the tabs are labeled:
----AutoCorrect
----MathAutoCorrect
----AutoFormat as you type
----AutoFormat
----Smart Tags

[5] Gone in 2007 is the “AutoText†tab where all our hundreds of text
paragraphs were stored/shown.

[6] I even tried relabeling our 5,465kb “Normal.dot†file to two new files
with extensions of “Normal.dotm†and NormalEmail.dotm.
----Outlook 2007 and Word 2007 both threw up when I tried opening each
program after relabeling the extension, with an error message saying
“Normal.dotm†was not a valid file or something like that.


Bottom line:
-----Where has the “AutoText†2003 function gone to for 2007?
-----How do we convert our old 2003 Normal.dot file to the two new versions
2007 requires called “Normal.dotm†and NormalEmail.dotm?


Thanks again for assisting!


Greg

 

[Greg Gates]

Bill thank you for responding

[1] We looked at the "Quick Text" 2007 function. It seems to works similar
to how "AutoText" worked in 2003. But at first glance, not as effecient a
way to store text information and reuse it quickly as the 2003 "AutoText" was.

[2] Plus how the heck do we recover from the 5,464 kb 2003 Normal.dot our
hundreds (not kidding) hundreds of hours of keying in information?? We keyed
in all our technical information into AutoText 2003 Outlook to create
response text for Outlook e-mail replies.

-----Now how the heck do we migrate them into Quick Text???

-----If it takes 100% rekeying, our guess is we won't be the only company
using 2003 then migrating to 2007 who will not be happy campers. Especially
all the other e-commerce folks who live and die with Outlook as a major daily
resource.

-----If it takes 100% rekeying, sounds like we came up with a new
aftermarket software product migrating all the 2003 AutoText to the 2007
Quick Text Function.


Anyone have any thoughts for us?

Thank You

 

[Greg Gates]

Bill taking your suggestion, I just played around with 2007 Word.

I found in 2007 Word a function under Word’s Quick Text call “Building Blocksâ€

To get there we looked in 2007 Word’s “Insert†function. There is an Icon
there named “Objectâ€

Going to “Object†then going to the Tab “Create from Fileâ€

Then browsing to our 2003 Normal.dot file and clicking on it to load it

Then going back to Quick Text, there is a new Icon called building blocks,
ALL I repeat ALL our 2003 Outlook AutoText paragraphs are there in Building
Blocks for Word 2007 as they were in Word 2003.


Bottom line
How do we get the Building Blocks functionality in Outlook 2007?












Greg Gates
Co-Founder www.ringdesigner.com

Save Hundreds.....Even Thousands
Make an Educated Purchase Decision

503-670-7218 (e-mail address removed) 503-598-1922 fax
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RingDesigner.com

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Does saving the file in Word as NormalEmail.dotm give you these quick
parts in Outlook?

 

[BillR [MVP]]

I think it *was* there in a previous build but they seem to have left it out
of the Ribbon in beta 2 in favour of what I've posed. Agreed transferring
over for you will be a big job. Just maybe the Word guys can come with a
way - maybe via VBA?

 

[Greg Gates]

BillR and Patrick,

We really are caught between a rock and a hard place.

Maybe we just are not ready to convert to Office 2007 from Office 2003 as
many of the functions so easy to use in Outlook 2003 are omitted from Outlook
2007.

Two Outlook 2003 functions that we depend on maybe a hundred times daily for
our business, are not included in Outlook 2007. They are [1] our 100's of
AutoText entries we use and [2] an easy "search" function for folders &
subfolders.


[1] Autocorrect>Autotext
In this thread we have asked to no avial how to recover our 100's of
normal.dot 2003 Autotext entries. That seems to be a hopeless case for 2003
migrating to 2007. So as it seems righ now, only 2003 Outlook/Word have the
Autotext functionality that companies use daily who work primarliy in
categories such as in e-commerce or companiesies like law firms. 2007
Word/Outlook do not seem to have retained that Autotext like functionality.

[2] Searching a folder and its sub folders:
In another post/thread we received all kinds of very good feedback as to how
to "search" in Outlook 2007. Unfortunately in our case, the ease of
searching folders and their subsequent sub-folders is lost in Outlook 2007.
In Outlook 2003, you would just right click on the Main folder you want to
search, click off sub folders, key in the text you wanted to find, and go!
Now you have to create unique search folders every time, click check marks
for EVERY sub folder you want searched (the click on "search sub folders"
doesn't work). It is so time consuming to search Outlook messages in 2007
versus 2003. The search folders function that took a right click for a few
seconds in Outlook 2003, takes about 4 minutes in Outlook 2007 going to
different search boxes, menus and lots of folder box checking (I timed how
long it took for 10 different searches averaging about 4 minutes per search).




So we just do not know what the heck to do.

We hate to ask, but

Maybe we just are not ready to convert to Office 2007 from Office 2003 as
many of the functions so easy to use are omitted from 2007.

We thought we were pretty MS Office savvy, in the past, always jumping on
the Office beta releases quickly as all the other upgrades were distinctly
improved over the former products they replaced. Not so sure that is the
case for 2007 versus 2003.

Just maybe, MS got caught up in the "techie" syndrome and their 2007 Office
products are geared more for folks with a ton of computer and system's
knowledge, instead of the common Office user as all the previous Office
products were.

Office 2003 and prior were truly user friendly. 2007 so far is clearly not
user friendly at leastr for 2007 Outlook and 2007 Word.


So if we must, and we really hate to ask, how do we convert back to 2003 for
all our Office products?




Warmest regards and thank you for attempting to help us.


Greg Gates

 

[BillR [MVP]]

Greg,
Have you tried the Instant Search? It's *much* faster than any previous
search ability in Outlook. Fast enough to the extent that you can search all
of a folder type and get hits in less time that it would have taken you to
search one folder in Outlook 2003.

--
Bill R MVP

BillR and Patrick,

We really are caught between a rock and a hard place.

Maybe we just are not ready to convert to Office 2007 from Office 2003 as
many of the functions so easy to use in Outlook 2003 are omitted from
Outlook
2007.

Two Outlook 2003 functions that we depend on maybe a hundred times daily
for
our business, are not included in Outlook 2007. They are [1] our 100's of
AutoText entries we use and [2] an easy "search" function for folders &
subfolders.


[1] Autocorrect>Autotext
In this thread we have asked to no avial how to recover our 100's of
normal.dot 2003 Autotext entries. That seems to be a hopeless case for
2003
migrating to 2007. So as it seems righ now, only 2003 Outlook/Word have
the
Autotext functionality that companies use daily who work primarliy in
categories such as in e-commerce or companiesies like law firms. 2007
Word/Outlook do not seem to have retained that Autotext like
functionality.

[2] Searching a folder and its sub folders:
In another post/thread we received all kinds of very good feedback as to
how
to "search" in Outlook 2007. Unfortunately in our case, the ease of
searching folders and their subsequent sub-folders is lost in Outlook
2007.
In Outlook 2003, you would just right click on the Main folder you want to
search, click off sub folders, key in the text you wanted to find, and go!
Now you have to create unique search folders every time, click check marks
for EVERY sub folder you want searched (the click on "search sub folders"
doesn't work). It is so time consuming to search Outlook messages in 2007
versus 2003. The search folders function that took a right click for a
few
seconds in Outlook 2003, takes about 4 minutes in Outlook 2007 going to
different search boxes, menus and lots of folder box checking (I timed how
long it took for 10 different searches averaging about 4 minutes per
search).




So we just do not know what the heck to do.

We hate to ask, but

Maybe we just are not ready to convert to Office 2007 from Office 2003 as
many of the functions so easy to use are omitted from 2007.

We thought we were pretty MS Office savvy, in the past, always jumping on
the Office beta releases quickly as all the other upgrades were distinctly
improved over the former products they replaced. Not so sure that is the
case for 2007 versus 2003.

Just maybe, MS got caught up in the "techie" syndrome and their 2007
Office
products are geared more for folks with a ton of computer and system's
knowledge, instead of the common Office user as all the previous Office
products were.

Office 2003 and prior were truly user friendly. 2007 so far is clearly
not
user friendly at leastr for 2007 Outlook and 2007 Word.


So if we must, and we really hate to ask, how do we convert back to 2003
for
all our Office products?




Warmest regards and thank you for attempting to help us.


Greg Gates

 

[Danieles]

Greg,

I would like to offer my experience in this matter. I too rely on hundreds
of Autotext entries for quick and easy writing in Outlook and Word (in my
case Office 2000). When trying out the Office 2007 beta 2, I was shocked to
find out that Autotext had seemingly disappeared.

However, I managed to recover Autotext entries in Word 2007. This is what I
did:

Office Button>Word Options>Add-ins>in the drop-down list under "Manage:"
select "Templates" then "Go". Select "Add" under "Global Templates and
add-ins", then navigate to your Word 2003 Normal.dot and select it.

This will restore all your autotext entries in Word 2007, you can then find
them under Quick Parts>Building Blocks Organiser. You can enter the autotext
entries in the normal way by typing in the first few letters then F3.

HOWEVER:

1. Word does not save these settings, you must reload the old Normal.dot
template every time you restart Word 2007.

2. I have not found a way of achieving the same result in Outlook 2007. It
seems that Outlook and Word are no longer connected as they were in Office
2000/2003. The check box that said "use Word to compose e-mail" is no longer
there in Outlook 2007.

I certainly hope that Microsoft will be able to restore Autotext in a simple
manner to both Word and Outlook 2007 in the final version. It is
inconceivable that such basic functionality should have been ignored.

Best regards

Daniele Squarci

"Greg Gates" <greg AT ringdesigner.com> wrote in message

[1] Autocorrect>Autotext
In this thread we have asked to no avial how to recover our 100's of
normal.dot 2003 Autotext entries. That seems to be a hopeless case for
2003
migrating to 2007. So as it seems righ now, only 2003 Outlook/Word have
the
Autotext functionality that companies use daily who work primarliy in
categories such as in e-commerce or companiesies like law firms. 2007
Word/Outlook do not seem to have retained that Autotext like
functionality.

 

[Steve R]

So, has anyone yet discovered a WORK-AROUND to have AUTOTEXT work in OUTLOOK
2007 as it did in OUTLOOK 2003?

If not, then I am most discouraged.
I will most likely not recommend a migration to OFFICE 2007 -- at least
until this is resolved.

Anyone out there have any suggestions? Bill MVP?
--
Steve R

--
Steve R

Greg,

I would like to offer my experience in this matter. I too rely on hundreds
of Autotext entries for quick and easy writing in Outlook and Word (in my
case Office 2000). When trying out the Office 2007 beta 2, I was shocked to
find out that Autotext had seemingly disappeared.

However, I managed to recover Autotext entries in Word 2007. This is what I
did:

Office Button>Word Options>Add-ins>in the drop-down list under "Manage:"
select "Templates" then "Go". Select "Add" under "Global Templates and
add-ins", then navigate to your Word 2003 Normal.dot and select it.

This will restore all your autotext entries in Word 2007, you can then find
them under Quick Parts>Building Blocks Organiser. You can enter the autotext
entries in the normal way by typing in the first few letters then F3.

HOWEVER:

1. Word does not save these settings, you must reload the old Normal.dot
template every time you restart Word 2007.

2. I have not found a way of achieving the same result in Outlook 2007. It
seems that Outlook and Word are no longer connected as they were in Office
2000/2003. The check box that said "use Word to compose e-mail" is no longer
there in Outlook 2007.

I certainly hope that Microsoft will be able to restore Autotext in a simple
manner to both Word and Outlook 2007 in the final version. It is
inconceivable that such basic functionality should have been ignored.

Best regards

Daniele Squarci

"Greg Gates" <greg AT ringdesigner.com> wrote in message

[1] Autocorrect>Autotext
In this thread we have asked to no avial how to recover our 100's of
normal.dot 2003 Autotext entries. That seems to be a hopeless case for
2003
migrating to 2007. So as it seems righ now, only 2003 Outlook/Word have
the
Autotext functionality that companies use daily who work primarliy in
categories such as in e-commerce or companiesies like law firms. 2007
Word/Outlook do not seem to have retained that Autotext like
functionality.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

I've posted some info at http://turtleflock-ol2007.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C1013F1F9A99E3D8!158.entry that may help you.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers