Autotext entries only in Normal.dot?

[WebColin]

I've been working for a week on this template, I've been careful to put all
my new styles, including Table and Caption styles in the template. I
replicated the document and the template to my laptop, confirmed everything
was there and working, and left my house. Now I see that when I try to
insert my Captions and other pieces of text that have multiple character
styles via AutoText, all of that information is missing!

Why on Earth does Word refuse to let us assign AutoText and other entries to
a specific template? Or does it? Did I make a mistake when I left? Was there
a way to store my AutoText in the template I defined?

If no, this is like the dictionary - why can't we define a dictionary for
every template. I write fiction in addition to my freelance business work. I
often create character or place names, or even just fake words, but I want
to mark them as correct to the spellchecker for all the documents that take
place in that "world." Word allows for multiple dictionaries, but no way to
specify which dictionary goes with which document or template, right? That's
just dumb, isn't it? Am I missing something?

What is the point of a template if it doesn't encapsulate up to and
including everything that's needed to define how documents based on it will
work. Frankly, I'd think the dictionary and AutoText entries are more likely
to be document-centric than something like toolbars. And can't even the
toolbars be linked to the template (or am I thinking of WordPerfect - which
is just the king of in-document configuration, including embedding code in
the text itself)?

Sorry for the rant. If anyone has any advice or suggestions, I'd welcome
them.

Thanks,
Colin

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi Colin,

Whoa, slow down! Yes, you can put AutoText in any template.

For the first AutoText you create during a session, select the text in the
document and go to the Insert > AutoText > AutoText dialog. At the bottom of
the dialog, open the Look In dropdown and select the specific template you
want to store into, and then click the Add button (when you're adding
entries, the "All active templates" really means Normal.dot).

After that first entry, the setting is sticky for the rest of the session,
so you can use the dialog or the Alt+F3 shortcut to add more entries and
they'll go to the same template.

For entries that are already defined in Normal.dot and that you want in your
other template, open a document based on the other template. Then open the
Organizer (in Tools > Templates & Add-Ins, click the Organizer button) and
click the AutoText tab. Normal.dot will be open on one side and the other
template will be on the other side. Select the entries in Normal.dot (as
usual, hold Ctl or Shift to select multiple items) and click the Copy
button.

See http://www.word.mvps.org/faqs/customization/AutoText.htm for more.

As for dictionaries, yes, you can have multiple dictionaries. The choice of
which ones to enable isn't stored in a document or template, but you can go
into the Tools > Options > Spelling & Grammar dialog and turn them on and
off, and a simple AutoOpen macro in a template could take care of automating
that job for all documents based on that template.

 

[WebColin]

Thanks, you're absolutely right!

That worked wonderfully. I'm glad I was wrong.

- Colin