Can you convert autotext data from 97 to 03?

[Tim Horton]

The company I am employed by just updated all office pc's to Office 2007. I
am a biologist who over the years has been creating autotext entries for
hundreds of scientific names for plant and animal species. I am aware that
the entire autotext data is a template (normal.dot). In the past I have lost
all my autotext data due to hard drive re-imaging but was able to save the
normal.dot file and reload it after the re-imaging was complete. Is there a
way for me to retreive my autotext entries from Office 2003? I went to the
help tool and tried the add-ins options but was not successful. Please help.
Tim Horton

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Your Word 2003 AutoText entries will be converted into Building block
entries, and will automatically show up in the AutoText gallery.

All Building Block entries can be inserted the same way AutoText entries can
(using the F3 method). However, AutoComplete has been disabled in Word 2007.

Your subject line mentions "from 97 to 03", which seems to be different from
what the text of the message is asking. However, AutoText entries from a
Word 97 normal.dot should work fine in Word 2003 (as well as in Word 2007,
except that they will become Building Block entries, as indicated).

 

[Jay Freedman]

Here's a tip: don't "convert" or "move" your AutoText entries. Make a
copy of the existing template containing the AutoText entries (it
doesn't matter what else it contains, such as styles or macros). In
Windows Explorer, open the folder

%appdata%\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033

(the number 1033 is appropriate for a US English installation and will
be different for other languages). Drop the template in that folder
along with Building Blocks.dotx, and restart Word.

Now the AutoText entries will appear in the Building Blocks Organizer,
and you can use them by typing the name and pressing F3.
Unfortunately, the AutoComplete feature (type part of the name and be
prompted to press Enter to insert the entry) doesn't work in 2007.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Tony Jollans]

You don't need to worry about your language - it should work for all
languages if you put the template(s) in the top-level folder
(%appdata%\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks).

I would caution, despite what Jay says, that it would be better not to have
macros in the template (unless you want to use them) as you will get
unnecessary security prompts.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I agree that it would be better not to include macros in the template,
although I didn't see any security prompts when I did have them.

Also, it would be a good idea to open the template and use the Office
button > Convert command to make it a 2007-format template. This would
avoid an obscure bug I found: If you insert a Building Block Gallery
content control and set it to show the AutoText gallery, and some of
the entries come from a .dot file instead of a .dotx file, the first
entry from the .dot file and _all_ entries that fall below it won't
show the preview in the gallery.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

If the file was contained in a "Trusted" folder, then there wouldn't be a
security prompt, using Word 2007's default settings.

 

[Jay Freedman]

But would the Document Building Blocks folder be considered a trusted
folder? It isn't listed explicitly in the Trust Center > Trusted
Locations dialog.

 

[Tony Jollans]

If it's not listed I wouldn't expect it to be trusted - it isn't by default.
What are your macro settings (completely reworded in this version and, if
anything, less clear than before)?

 

[Jay Freedman]

Now that I've had another go at this, I find that you're correct.

My macro security setting is "Disable all macros with notification",
which is roughly the equivalent of the Medium setting in Word 2003.

What I forgot was that several months ago I used my AutoTextDumper and
Loader macros to make a template that contains only autotext, and
that's what I've had in the Document Building Blocks folder. I still
don't remember seeing the security warning when I used an old
Normal.dot that contained macros, but I just tried it again and I do
see the warning now.

The warning doesn't prevent the autotext from working, and it's much
less intrusive than the big modal dialog box that 2003 used.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.