Word Autotext and Entourage contacts

[Sol Apache]

I have a problem in that Word has automatically put the 1000s of contacts
(none of whom are relevant anymore) I had in an old version of Entourage
into my Word Autotext, and when I try to delete them they all come back
again!!


How can I remove these pesky, unwanted autotexts from Word for ever and ever
and ever.

Thanks for any help

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

In Word, Tools | AutoCorrect, AutoText tab, there is a checkbox to "exclude
contacts" from the AutoComplete tips.

I think this must also prevent Word from loading them (not totally sure, as
I have a random 4 of 130 listed in my AutoText, and I don't know why. But
it seems to prevent the other 126 anyhow).

You will have to quit Word and restart it for this to take effect, I'm
sure--I believe they are loaded on launch rather than stored by Word.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Sol:

Here you go, run this macro to remove them:

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


You wouldn¹t believe how far I had to search to get that: I wrote it three
years ago, and I had to search the web for a copy

Cheers

I have a problem in that Word has automatically put the 1000s of contacts
(none of whom are relevant anymore) I had in an old version of Entourage
into my Word Autotext, and when I try to delete them they all come back
again!!


How can I remove these pesky, unwanted autotexts from Word for ever and ever
and ever.

Thanks for any help

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Sol Apache]

Hi John
Thank you very much for this. I¹ll check it out. I am sure it will be the
solution to my problems.

The entourage version which contains all those contacts is an earlier
version, probably dating from just before you wrote your macro.

Thanks

Sol

 

[Roger Morris]

Hi John,

I wonder if that still works with Word 11.1 (OS 10.3.9)

I tried the macro to delete my AutoText entries but it reports :
"0 contacts deleted"
even though the Normal template did contain a whole lot of contacts.

But - On starting to type names (which are in the entourage DB) Word
does offer to auto complete. (I don't use the term "AutoText" because I
don't know whether it is that or not)

I have a copy of Normal without any contacts and copied/renamed things
so that it became the active Normal. Examining this with Tex-Edit Plus
confirmed no contact names at all.

But - again on starting to type names Word does still offer to auto
complete - so where do the completion offers come from? - still not in
Normal, I quit and checked again.

I have found that deleting* the Entourage Main Identity Database *does*
prevent any auto complete offering. (*kept a backup of course)

Does Word now access the DB directly without copying into Normal?
Or - am I missing something?

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Roger:

Hopefully Paul will be along in a moment to give you a definitive answer,
but yes, my understanding is that the Autocomplete tips are now stored in
the Office Address Book, which is part of the Entourage database and shares
its data with the Entourage Contacts List.

If you use Organiser to look in your Normal template, you will see the
AutoText entries listed for each contact. However, they're fictitious: the
"entries" are not actually "in" the Normal Template, and hence, the macro
can't access them.

It's not reliable looking in either a document or a template with a text
editor: a lot of the content of either is not text, it's binary) In this
case, I think the "AutoText" is actually a binary pointer into the Entourage
database.

To stop the AutoComplete tips is easy: Use Tools>Autocorrect>Autotext and
check the checkbox labelled "Exclude contacts".

Deleting the AutoText entries is also easy: they are dynamically generated
and will go away when you uncheck the box.

To remove a given entry, use either the Office Address Book or Entourage
Contacts to delete the record for that person. You will delete the entire
contact, of course.

Hope this helps

Hi John,

I wonder if that still works with Word 11.1 (OS 10.3.9)

I tried the macro to delete my AutoText entries but it reports :
"0 contacts deleted"
even though the Normal template did contain a whole lot of contacts.

But - On starting to type names (which are in the entourage DB) Word
does offer to auto complete. (I don't use the term "AutoText" because I
don't know whether it is that or not)

I have a copy of Normal without any contacts and copied/renamed things
so that it became the active Normal. Examining this with Tex-Edit Plus
confirmed no contact names at all.

But - again on starting to type names Word does still offer to auto
complete - so where do the completion offers come from? - still not in
Normal, I quit and checked again.

I have found that deleting* the Entourage Main Identity Database *does*
prevent any auto complete offering. (*kept a backup of course)

Does Word now access the DB directly without copying into Normal?
Or - am I missing something?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

John is fully correct, It goes even further: the "Office Address Book" in
Word IS the Entourage Address Book (what John is calling the Entourage
Contacts List). It just points to the same thing.

Yes, just use that "Exclude contacts" option in AutoCorrect/AutoText now in
Word 2004.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

From: "John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 16:12:16 +1000
Conversation: Word Autotext and Entourage contacts
Subject: Re: Word Autotext and Entourage contacts

Hi Roger:

Hopefully Paul will be along in a moment to give you a definitive answer,
but yes, my understanding is that the Autocomplete tips are now stored in
the Office Address Book, which is part of the Entourage database and shares
its data with the Entourage Contacts List.

If you use Organiser to look in your Normal template, you will see the
AutoText entries listed for each contact. However, they're fictitious: the
"entries" are not actually "in" the Normal Template, and hence, the macro
can't access them.

It's not reliable looking in either a document or a template with a text
editor: a lot of the content of either is not text, it's binary) In this
case, I think the "AutoText" is actually a binary pointer into the Entourage
database.

To stop the AutoComplete tips is easy: Use Tools>Autocorrect>Autotext and
check the checkbox labelled "Exclude contacts".

Deleting the AutoText entries is also easy: they are dynamically generated
and will go away when you uncheck the box.

To remove a given entry, use either the Office Address Book or Entourage
Contacts to delete the record for that person. You will delete the entire
contact, of course.

Hope this helps

Hi John,

I wonder if that still works with Word 11.1 (OS 10.3.9)

I tried the macro to delete my AutoText entries but it reports :
"0 contacts deleted"
even though the Normal template did contain a whole lot of contacts.

But - On starting to type names (which are in the entourage DB) Word
does offer to auto complete. (I don't use the term "AutoText" because I
don't know whether it is that or not)

I have a copy of Normal without any contacts and copied/renamed things
so that it became the active Normal. Examining this with Tex-Edit Plus
confirmed no contact names at all.

But - again on starting to type names Word does still offer to auto
complete - so where do the completion offers come from? - still not in
Normal, I quit and checked again.

I have found that deleting* the Entourage Main Identity Database *does*
prevent any auto complete offering. (*kept a backup of course)

Does Word now access the DB directly without copying into Normal?
Or - am I missing something?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Roger Morris]

John is fully correct, It goes even further: the "Office Address Book" in
Word IS the Entourage Address Book (what John is calling the Entourage
Contacts List). It just points to the same thing.

Yes, just use that "Exclude contacts" option in AutoCorrect/AutoText now in
Word 2004.

Thank you John and Paul.

I was puzzled when John's macro didn't work and started to investigate
what was going on.

You have confirmed my thoughts on how the contacts AutoText does work
now.