Autotext Contact entry fails

[Steven E. Brier]

Autotext entry of contacts no longer works.

I'm not sure when it changed, but when typing letters, memos or other
documents that require entry of contact names and addresses, I no longer get
the opportunity to use the autotext feature.

The checkboxes in the autotext dialog box match the settings recommended
("show autocomplete tip for Autotext, Contacts, and dates" is checked, and
"exclude contacts" is unchecked.)

Any suggestions on where else I can look?

Cordially,

Steven

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Steven,

If you're sure you have all the correct settings in Tools> AutoCorrect, then
my best suggestion is to try a couple of standard troubleshooting measures.
Since you didn't state your OS or Office version numbers or update levels
(please, please always do!), I'm going to assume you're in OS X/Office X.

1) Quit Word and navigate to your Normal template which should be in
/Applications/Microsoft Office X/Templates/. Rename Normal to something else
(like OldNormal), then relaunch Word. If this fixes the problem but you
have customizations, etc, in OldNormal that you want to maintain, you can
use Organizer to transfer those from OldNormal to the newly-created Normal
template. Then you can trash the old renamed file. To learn how to use
Organizer, see here (use IE not Safari to view this site):
<http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/MacWordNormalTemplate.htm>

If this doesn't fix the problem, quit Word again, trash the new Normal and
rename OldNormal back to Normal.

2) To test your Preference files, quit *all* Office Applications.
Navigate to your ~/library/preferences/Microsoft folder. Rename the
Microsoft Component Preferences, Word Settings (10), and Microsoft Office
Settings (10) files. When you restart Word, these files will be recreated.
If all is well, you can trash the old files. You will have to reset some
Preferences and AutoCorrect settings.

If this doesn't help, you can trash the new files and rename the old ones
back.

Hope one of these helps.

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>

 

[Steven E. Brier]

Hi Beth:

I did your suggestions, and it's better, but still doesn't pick up all the
contacts. (I've got 4,085 of them).

It picks up everything where either the first or last name begins with the
letter "a" even if it doesn't show in the Autotext list. It doesn't pick up
many other names, even if they show in the autotext list.

Any other suggestions on how to force Autotext to reimport all the contacts?

I'm running OS 10.3.3.
Office v.X with all the patches.
Entourage says it's 10.1.4, Service Release 1.
Word says only that it's Service Release 1.

Cordially,

Steven

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word]]

Hi Steven:

Yeah:

Run this macro:

Sub DelContacts()

' Removes Contacts from Normal Template
' Macro written July 4 2002 by John McGhie

Dim anAutoText As AutoTextEntry
Dim i As Integer

For Each anAutoText In Application.NormalTemplate.AutoTextEntries
If Left(anAutoText.Value, 9) = "* CONTACT" Then
anAutoText.Delete
i = i + 1
End If
Next anAutoText

StatusBar = Str(i) & " contacts deleted"

End Sub


If you do not know how to turn that into a macro, search on
www.word.mvps.org for instructions on "What do I do with macros people send
me".

Cheers

Hi Beth:

I did your suggestions, and it's better, but still doesn't pick up all the
contacts. (I've got 4,085 of them).

It picks up everything where either the first or last name begins with the
letter "a" even if it doesn't show in the Autotext list. It doesn't pick up
many other names, even if they show in the autotext list.

Any other suggestions on how to force Autotext to reimport all the contacts?

I'm running OS 10.3.3.
Office v.X with all the patches.
Entourage says it's 10.1.4, Service Release 1.
Word says only that it's Service Release 1.

Cordially,

Steven

--

Please respond only to the newsgroup to preserve the thread.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]