Styles in Autotext

[Lillymed]

I am an advanced user of Word 2003. However, I am stumped on one point in
particular. If I create a style for something and then select and create the
autotext entry, why is that when I insert the autotext where I want it, the
style gets somehow stripped and everything changes to "normal"? It's
frustrating. I then have to reapply the style where I need it.

Any help on this would be appreciated.

Thank you,

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Lillymed

If you include the paragraph mark in your AutoText the style information
will be saved with it. This is useful for inserting whole paragraphs of
pre-formatted text. If you don't include the paragraph mark, your
AutoText will just save the text. This is useful when you just want to
insert a phrase and have it fit in with the surrounding formatting.

More information at:
Using AutoText
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/AutoText.htm

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

That has me stumped as well. I had thought that inserting an AutoText entry
saved in a particular style would be one way to get the style in the
document where I inserted it, but this doesn't appear to be the case.

 

[Lillymed]

Maybe 2003 just does not have that capability. i never had this problem with
2000 or earlier versions of Word.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Lillymed,

Can you list the steps you're usingto create the Autotext entry and then apply it? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting, but if I create
either a character or paragraph style, apply it to text, save that text as a new Autotext entry when I reuse the text it has that
style applied.

If you look at Insert=>Autotext=>Autotext
is the sample for that entry shown in the style you created?

===========
Maybe 2003 just does not have that capability. i never had this problem with 2000 or earlier versions of Word. >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Lillymed]

First of all, I have customized my menus to work like Word 6 did for
autotext, because I was so used to hitting "Alt+E" to pull up the autotext.

The styles I have applied to what I want as autotext are either paragraph
styles or character styles. The particular autotext entry I'm working with
today includes about 20 paragraphs of text.

So, I have created "character" styles for two of the lines of information
that I will need to use later on with the "style reference" field, and I have
applied paragraph styles, as well. I then highlight all 20 paragraphs, hit
"Alt+E", which pulls up the autotext box (listing all autotexts), I give it
my code name and hit "Add."

When I insert the autotext entry (by hitting "F3" at the insertion point),
the formatting of my paragraph style, in particular, is inserted with a
completely different style (not even "normal"), but some weird name that I
have never intentionally applied to any paragraph within that auto text
entry.

 

[Lillymed]

Unfortunately, incuding the paragraph mark is not helping in my case. The
"character" styles I have applied in this one autotext entry seem to be
intact, but the actual paragraph style that I have gets assigned some weird,
totally different style (not even normal) that I have never applied to it.

Bizarre.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Lilly,

What is the name of the styles you created and what is the 'weird name' that you're seeing when applying it? It could be a 'linked'
style (paragraph and character styles stacked/linked into one).

Does this occur if you insert the Autotext entry in a blank document or only when inserted into existing text in a document.

============
First of all, I have customized my menus to work like Word 6 did for
autotext, because I was so used to hitting "Alt+E" to pull up the autotext.

The styles I have applied to what I want as autotext are either paragraph
styles or character styles. The particular autotext entry I'm working with
today includes about 20 paragraphs of text.

So, I have created "character" styles for two of the lines of information
that I will need to use later on with the "style reference" field, and I have
applied paragraph styles, as well. I then highlight all 20 paragraphs, hit
"Alt+E", which pulls up the autotext box (listing all autotexts), I give it
my code name and hit "Add."

When I insert the autotext entry (by hitting "F3" at the insertion point),
the formatting of my paragraph style, in particular, is inserted with a
completely different style (not even "normal"), but some weird name that I
have never intentionally applied to any paragraph within that auto text
entry. >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Lillymed]

This particular paragraph style is called "cc", and, I'm using it in a
template I created. I initially enter it when the template is blank and then
continuously thereafter on separate pages. That paragraph gets assigned a
style called "Created On".

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Lillymed

I've just gone through something similar and I'd be keen to see if we
are experiencing similar problems. Can you let us know:

1. Where is the AutoText stored? Specifically: is it in a template that
you use as the basis for a new document, or is it in an add-in?

2. Does the problem occur if you insert the Autotext entry in a blank
document based on normal.dot, or only when inserted into existing text
in a document based on your template?

3. Is style "cc" numbered or bulleted? Has it ever been numbered or
bulleted?

4. When you insert the AutoText into a document based on normal.dot,
does it insert any extraneous styles into the document? Try this out by
inserting the AutoText into a new document based on normal.dot and then
checking the user-defined styles in the document. You would expect the
AutoText to add the styles it needs, but no others.

5. Create a new document from your template and insert the AutoText. Has
it inserted any new styles into your document, apart from those it
genuinely needs?

6. Use File > New to create a new template (ie in the "Templates"
dialog, in the "Create new" box, choose "Template"). Don't do anything
to any styles. Use the Tools > Templates and Add-ins > Organizer to copy
the AutoTexts from your problem file to this new template file. Save the
new file in your Word Startup folder. Close and re-open Word. Use Tools

Templates and Add-ins and un-tick all add-ins *except* your new one.

Now, insert the AutoText into a plain document based on normal.dot. Do
you experience the same problem?

7. Finally, insert the AutoText from your new file into a new document
created from your template. Do you still experience the same problem?

Cheers

Shauna

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Lillymed]

Hi Shauna,

I spent a lot of time responding to this, but when I tried to post it, I got
an error message. Let me just tell you that I was working on a special
medical transcription platform that is word-based last night. For some
reason, when I opened up Word this morning, most of my customization,
including autotext entries, macros, styles, toolbars, menu customizations,
views, etc., were gone. I spent a good portion of the day re-creating
things.

I had to re-create the template that I have been having the problems with.
So, I created a new blank document, copied the autotext paragraphs from an
older document, and pasted ("unformatted") into the new blank document. I
then created and applied styles and saved it as my required template. After
creating a document based on that template, I inserted the autotext entry,
and it came out absolutely perfect.

I decided to try another template (that wasn't wiped out last night) and
insert some autotext entries in that one, which had always given me the same
kind of problem (basically changing many of the styles I had created to
bizarre new styles, some of them increasing font size to over 200), and those
worked perfectly, too.

So, fortuitously, whatever happened last night after I used that special
platform, cleared up my normal, and everything seems to be working fine now.

Now I just think I'm going to have to get in the habit of backing up my
normal before I work on that platform again, so that I can more easily
recreate my customizations.

Thanks for all your help on this.

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Lillymed

Based on your description of your experience, and my own recent
experience, I suspect what has happened to both of us is something like
the following:

1. We both had a .dot file with an AutoText.
2. That file contained a style that was not used in the AutoText.
3. Somehow the .dot file got into a bit of a mess.
4. When inserting the AutoText, Word erroneously mixed up the styles.

In my case, the style had been deleted from the .dot file, and was not
used in any AutoText, but when I inserted the AutoText into a document,
that old style was added to the document (which I absolutely did not
want). In your case, Word seems to have actually formatted the AutoText
with the wrong style.

I solved my problem by creating a new .dot file and using the Organizer
to copy the AutoTexts to the new file. You effectively did the same
thing (albeit caused by other problems).

By the way, you might find life easier if you create a new .dot file and
store your customizations in it. Put that file in your Word Startup
folder and it will load automatically when Word starts. You can then
back up that file as you need.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Helah]

I am convinced there are a lot of bugs in 2007, 2003 was much easier and
user friendly, I certainly miss my auto text, why they ever traded it for
building blocks I don't know. I feel as though this was good money wasted on
a cheap expensive program. I prefer to use 2003 2 to 1 over this. From what
I see, they have tried to combine power point, drawing and word all inot one
and it is flubbed up!!!

 

[Stefan Blom]

There is certainly a learning curve with the new interface. But the
capabilities of Word are quite the same, and there are also some
improvements.

As you have noticed, AutoText has changed in Word 2007. In the new version,
there are several different building blocks (of predefined content),
organized into galleries, and AutoText is just one of those. In other words,
building blocks extend the idea of AutoText.

The building block feature allows you to insert predefined headers, footers,
text boxes, etc. in an easy way. For example, a header can be added via
Insert tab | Header (or via the Header & Footer Tools Design tab). There is
also a common dialog box under Insert tab | Quick Parts | Building Blocks
Organizer where you can insert or edit the properties of existing building
blocks.

To create building blocks/AutoText, you can still use Alt+F3.

Unfortunately, in Word 2007 AutoText entries can no longer be inserted via
AutoComplete. What you can do is type the name of an AutoText (at least so
many characters that the AutoText entry can be identified by Word) and then
press F3 to insert it. Alternatively, you can make use of formatted
AutoCorrect entries instead; these work the same in Word 2007.