If you don't already have the useful AutoCorrect.dot backup tool, it can be downloaded at the following site:
http//word.mvps.org/Downloads/index.htm
You will find it very user friendly and self-explanatory. When you make your first backup, you will end up with a Microsoft Word document consisting of a simple table. To ensure that you are able to reimport your backup into Word, you must not change the heading ‘AutoCorrect Backup Document’, or the column headings, ‘Name’, ‘Value’, and 'RTF' (stands for Rich Text Format).
Columns
The first column, ‘Name’, is where you enter your shorthand codes for words and phrases. It is preferable to make your codes a single, short entry and avoid including any actual words, or you will get unwanted expansions.
The second column, ‘Value’, contains what you want the codes to expand to, and it could be a word, a phrase, a graphic, a table, a letter, a form, a chapter of a book and so on. The tool will accept all of these. The last column, ‘RTF’, indicates whether you want it formatted. ‘˜False’ stands for plain text and ‘True’ stands for formatted text. If your text expansion is greater than 255 characters, you must also store it as ‘True’. I have yet to encounter the size limit for a single entry, but no doubt it does exist. A lot will depend on your own computer’s capacity, I suspect.
Error Messages
The most important thing to remember about the entries is that there must be no empty cells and no cell must contain an unwanted space at the end of the entry. The tool will only accept legitimate spaces between words. If you attempt to reimport the backup into Word and it contains empty cells or empty rows, or any unwanted spaces, you will get an error message and the backup will stop.
Empty cells and rows are easily located and deleted. To eliminate all unwanted spaces, click on Show Invisibles then do a Find Next and Replace through the entire document and remove all trailing spaces at the end of entries, but leave intact all legitimate spaces between characters and words.
I generally don’t recommend phrases in the ‘Name’ column because of the risk of unwanted expansion, but there are acceptable exceptions. For example, I use i m to expand into I mean, simply because im already expands into I’m, but I could just as easily use ime.
The ‘Value’ column, on the other hand, is capable of storing very complex entries, provided that they don’t have that dastardly trailing space at the end of them.
Once you have a clean table, you are ready to make your own bulk entries. Leave the Show Invisibles on while you are doing them, so that you don’t reintroduce any unwanted trailing spaces.
Adding Extra Rows
Insert five blank rows at the bottom of the table. Highlight and copy those rows. Then every time you press control + v, you will add an additional five rows. You are now ready to spend a pleasant hour or so creating your own shorthand typing. For example, if you do work for a radiology department, enter codes for all of the common words and phrases that you encounter in your work, including proper nouns - the names of people, places, equipment, procedures, companies, drugs, treatment, etc. Don’t forget that if you want formatting, you will have to type ‘True’ in the last row. Just make sure that you don't have any blank rows left over when you finish.
You can now reimport the list back into the Microsoft Office programs using the AutoCorrect.dot tool. If you encounter an error message, take a note of where the backup procedure stopped and go back to check for unwanted spaces. The backup should proceed smoothly and quickly.
Adding Large or Formatted Entries
The next step now is to go ahead and create your own more complex entries for forms, tables, patient notes, formulae, sentences, etc. Give them an AutoCorrect code and don’t forget to save them as ‘True’ for a formatted or long entry. The general rule is that if you are planning to insert it into an existing document, use AutoCorrect. If it’s going to be the style for an entire document that you will be using frequently, you should save it as a template.
You will know when you have overloaded the normal template because:
(a) Microsoft Word will take much longer to load, and
(b) AutoCorrect will start to play up and you will get bizarre expansions.
One of the drawbacks of AutoCorrect may be that it saves all formatted text to the global Normal template, which is why it's advisable to delete entries you no longer use, to avoid overload.
Group Your Formatted Text Together
To make codes for formatted text easy to remember, I begin my entries with ‘my’ as in ‘mypic’, ‘myCV’, ‘mypricelist’ and so on. That way, if I forget the code, all I have to do is go instantly into the AutoCorrect dropdown window (press Alt then t then a), type 'my' into the Replace: field and I can then scroll down the list of all my large, formatted entries. If I am creating similar entries for a client, I will begin the code with their initials.
You will have spent an hour or two creating your formatted entries but it could save you hundreds of hours of work in future and the best part is that you can keep on adding to and deleting from the list. It will always be tailored to your current needs.
