Formatted Text Insertion into Microsoft Word

AutoCorrect will allow you to store multiple chunks of formatted text, either small or large. So let’s say, for example, that you want to set up a standard introduction for all your letters. You type something like the following in your chosen format:

John Brown
27 Arthurton Street
Kensington Gdns Vic 3030
Ph: (03) 98721301
E-mail: johnbrown@aol.com
Insert>date and time

Dear Sir/Madam

If you then highlight all the text, you can enter a simple code such as ‘myintro’ and Bob’s your uncle. You can do the same with a standard conclusion to correspondence and give it a similar code such as ‘myexit’. The beauty with this system is that your fingers don’t have to leave the standard keyboard that you’re most comfortable with anyway, and you can type the codes on-the-fly. The trick is to make sure that your codes are short, follow a simple pattern of logic consistent with all your other code styles, and don't require any effort to remember.

There is a widespread belief that AutoCorrect will only store up to 255 characters. This only applies if you save it as plain text. My biggest genuine AutoCorrect entry contains 5,500 characters because it is saved as formatted text. There does not appear to be any size limit to what AutoCorrect can save. Nor is AutoCorrect limited to codes, as some people seem to think. It is usually sufficient to make the first few letters or words of your entry the code (minus spaces between words), and it will expand to the full text/table automatically, in the same way that AutoText does. Or you can make it self-explanatory, such as “mypricelist” or “myreceipt”. The formatted text is saved in the normal template, which has to be backed up regularly anyway.

Why I don't recommend spaces in codes
With AutoCorrect it is necessary to avoid the possibility of unwanted expansion. If I used 'my list' as a code, can you imagine the trouble I would get myself into every time I typed those words? Keeping spaces out of codes is an easy way to avoid unwanted expansion.

Size limits with AutoCorrect
Just to test the size capacity of AutoCorrect, I highlighted an entire chapter of a book, complete with 23 TIFF images. The size was 25,000 KB. In AutoCorrect I gave it the code 'chap3', saved it and opened a new document. When I typed the code the entire chapter (including all pictures) reproduced itself in a matter of a second or two. Now I wouldn’t normally make such a big, single AutoCorrect entry because the downside is that Word then took about 30 seconds to load and open initially because of the new size of the normal template, whereas it usually loads and opens in a few seconds. If you chuck everything at the normal template then you have to expect some trade-off in load-up time. It was a pretty impressive test result all the same. I guess the answer is that you can save most of the things that you are likely to encounter in your work as codes for instant insertion.