Meanwhile, back to the original issue of the email I received, what can you do about getting AutoText back in Word 2007?
As a review, the first blog post in this series talked about AutoText. Next, I followed up with the Quick Part Gallery, which supplants AutoText in Word 2007 (and 2010). Finally, I cut to the chase:
The easiest (well, not, but bear with me) way to get AutoText back is to add its command button to the Quick Access Toolbar in Word 2007:
- From the Office button choose Word Options.
- Choose Customize on the left side of the window.
- From the list of categories on the top left, choose All Commands.
- Scroll through the list to find AutoText.
- Click the Add button to place it on the Quick Access Toolbar.
- Click OK.
What these steps do is to give you an extra button. They don’t revive the old way that AutoText worked. You’ll still need to add AutoText entries, as described in my previous blog post. But the AutoText button does give you a quick preview.
Things change in Word 2010: You don’t need to add the AutoText button. Instead, you’ll find an AutoText command as the first item in the Quick Parts menu (on the Insert tab). That command displays the AutoText entries from the Quick Part Gallery.
Word 2010 also lacks the AutoText bubbles from Word 2002/2003. It does, however, have the To Whom It May Concern AutoText entry, which Word 2007 lacks. Just type To Whom, press F3 and you’ll see the text.
On the other hand, Word 2010 seems to lack the current date AutoText entry. So when you type May in Word 2007 you’ll see an AutoText date bubble. No dice in Word 2010. (Though you can still press Alt+Shift+D in any version of Word to insert a date field.)
