How do I set up Word to finish a commonly typed sentence/phrase?

[Sunshine]

In older Word editions, within the spellcheck function, I could assign
"autocomplete" to commonly typed phrases and sentences. If I would type the
first few letters in the series, the rest would pop up in a box and if I hit
the enter key they would be inserted into the document. I don't know where
to find that on Word 2007.

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[Stefan Blom]

AutoComplete is no longer supported in Word 2007. However, you should
still be able to type the name of the AutoText entry/building block and
then press F3 to insert its contents.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message
news:[email protected]...

 

[CyberTaz]

The feature you're referring to is called AutoText, which still functions in
2007 but in a more restricting fashion. Part of that restriction is that the
AutoComplete ScreenTips no longer display - nor does the Enter key complete
the entry - for the AutoText Items. (There are a few built-in exceptions,
such as dates, month names & weekday names.) AutoText has also been
clustered within the "new" feature called Building Blocks, which you may
want to research in Word Help.

You can still type the AutoText Item "names" then press the F3 key to
complete the insertion.

Don't forget that you can use the Office button, go to Word Options, select
Resources, then click the Contact Us button to send feedback to MS ;-)

 

[Dee Meyerink]

I can't believe you took the autocomplete feature out. This was my lifeline
at work. Bad mistake Microsoft!!! It's much more time consuming to have to
use the building blocks.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In addition to what Stefan and Bob have told you, you may find that
AutoCorrect is more useful than AutoText for some of your applications; see
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/customization/AutoCorrect.htm.

 

[CyberTaz]

"We" aren't Microsoft - that's why I suggested the Resources option

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

As Bob points out, we are just users and had no input into this decision,
but note that you can still insert the AutoText as before by typing the
first four characters of the unique entry name and pressing F3 instead of
Enter or Tab.

 

[Opinicus]

As Bob points out, we are just users and had no input into this decision,
but note that you can still insert the AutoText as before by typing the
first four characters of the unique entry name and pressing F3 instead of
Enter or Tab.

Far be it from me to praise the new incarnation of Word but I think I know
the reason for this particular decision. If you enter the first letters of
an autotext in a table and hit return, Word XP will crash under some
circumstances. I got bitten twice by this nasty little "gotcha" today
alone.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The stated reason is that, now that AutoText entries are "Building Blocks"
(aka "Quick Parts"), AutoComplete would necessarily affect the rest of these
as well, and they include many cover sheets, TOCs, etc., that begin with the
same letters. I don't see how that would really be a problem, since
AutoComplete would never fire for them, but MS is aware of the problem (user
dissatisfaction) and may take steps to "fix" it.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I'm not sure I followed all the arguments, but the sticking point seems to
be that several kinds of Building Blocks (cover page, header, footer, pull
quote, etc.) can all have the same name; the program keeps them separate by
putting them in different galleries. The devs said "if you type one of those
names, and we show the AutoComplete prompt, what should be inserted when you
press Enter?"

My suggestion would be to display and respond to AutoComplete _only_ for
AutoText items, and not show it for any other kind of Building Block. The
program handles a lot of logic more complicated than that.

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

 

[Tony Jollans]

The question as to what the AutoComplete prompt might say and what might get
inserted when Enter is pressed, is the same question as regards what gets
inserted when you press F3 without a prompt, and has already been addressed.
I haven't done exhaustive tests but it appears that, when there is a
conflict, Building Block types are processed built-in types first, in
alphabetic order, followed by custom types, again in alphabetic order.
Luckily AutoText comes first in this sequence.

 

[Jay Freedman]

True, and that design decision made possible the following idiocy:
Under the name "Alphabet" (for one of several examples) there are a
cover page, a header, a footer, and several other Building Blocks. If
you put the cursor in the header pane, type Alphabet, and press F3,
Word inserts the cover page Building Block in the header because
"cover page" is alphabetically (!) before "header". :-b

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

The question as to what the AutoComplete prompt might say and what might get
inserted when Enter is pressed, is the same question as regards what gets
inserted when you press F3 without a prompt, and has already been addressed.
I haven't done exhaustive tests but it appears that, when there is a
conflict, Building Block types are processed built-in types first, in
alphabetic order, followed by custom types, again in alphabetic order.
Luckily AutoText comes first in this sequence.

 

[Tony Jollans]

Whoops! I hadn't come across that one; thank you, Jay.

Unfortunately I have had to do another mercy dash to my parents and don't
have 2007 here but it sounds like a good avenue for investigation. Will it
insert cover pages in other stories in the same way?

 

[Jay Freedman]

Yes, it works the same way -- the Building Block insertion by F3
doesn't pay any attention to the current story.

If you try the same "Alphabet" (or one of the others in which the
cover page contains a graphic) in a textbox, you get an error message
that "You cannot put drawing objects into a textbox, callout, comment,
footnote, or endnote". But if you choose an all-text one, such as
"Annual", it will happily jam a cover page into a textbox, or a
footnote....