Welcome to the second article in my series on AutoCorrect. Last time, we learned what AutoCorrect does (automatically changes words you type or spell incorrectly to their correct forms, e.g. changing “teh” to “the”) and where to find it in Words 2003, 2007 and 2010, and we can also set up a shortcut button to make it more accessible.

Now we’re going to look at how you can use AutoCorrect to speed up your typing and make it more efficient, and how you actually amend the AutoCorrect entries to tailor them to your requirements.

Why would I use AutoCorrect?

Apart from correcting common typos, AutoCorrect has two very handy uses: I use it in these ways all the time, and if you, you will save yourself time and effort.

1. If there is a word you can never remember how to spell, set up a short cut AutoCorrect, just type in the first few letters, and AutoCorrect will auto complete it for you. No more finding it in the spell checker yet again.  Type in Kaz and Word will display Kazakhstan.
2. If there is a long word or particularly a phrase that you use over and over again – “Creative and Marketing Director”, “economic forecasting”, “qualitative and quantitative research methodologies”, set up a short cut for each one and save all that typing (and possible typos). Type cmd, ef or qq and watch the phrases type themselves!

How do I tailor AutoCorrect to my individual requirements?

The key to this is in the AutoCorrect menu we met last time.

First of all, there are some useful features on the screen directly in front of you. Here’s how you turn on and off all those useful features that sort out typing errors as you go (we’ve all typed THe at the beginning of a sentence, haven’t we). You just untick the box if you don’t want it to do something. By the way, we’ll be looking at those other tabs along the top, especially AutoFormat As You Type, in another article.

So, for now, we’re working with the standard AutoCorrect. We’ve started off with a list of signs and symbols, because they come before “A” in Word’s alphabet. To see what else there is, try typing a letter into the top, blank fields. Here we have a mixture of the standard AutoCorrect entries (abouta changes to about, etc.) but the top two are my own additional entries. See how many keystrokes and how much time I save by typing aaa and getting accountability agent application inserted into my document (plus it’s typed correctly first time!).

How to add a new entry to AutoCorrect

Let’s look at how to add those new, personalised AutoCorrect entries. Well, it’s pretty simple. Type the abbreviation or mis-spelling in the left hand column (or field), the text that you want to appear in the document in the right hand field (or highlight the word you want to add an entry for in your document, then access this menu), and press Add.

You can see that your entry has now appeared on the AutoCorrect list, in its place in the alphabetical order. Now, whenever you type lb, the words Liz Broomfield will appear in your document.

How to delete an AutoCorrect entry

What if you want to delete an AutoCorrect entry? I did this recently – I had set re to AutoCorrect to recognize for a document I was working on that had no contractions (they’re, etc.). Of course, when I was then typing something more informal, I got lots of they’recognize as it tried to do what I’d asked it to do. So I wanted to get rid of that entry altogether. Here’s how you do that: Look up the entry by typing in your abbreviation – what you type as opposed to what you want to come up. When you’ve found the one you want to delete, press the Delete button.

Now you can see that the entry for lb/Liz Broomfield has disappeared and the list goes from lastyear to learnign. Note: it doesn’t ask you if you’re sure you want to delete, but it does leave that entry in the top text fields, so if you’ve made a mistake, you can just add it again.

How to change or replace an AutoCorrect entry

You may want to change an AutoCorrect entry – for example, you’re stopping talking about Liz Broomfield and want to refer to Lionel Blair. Type in your abbreviation and your new version of what you want Word to insert, in this case Lionel Blair. AutoCorrect will find the original entry and highlight it. The Replace button will appear – so press that.

Word does like to make sure you mean to do it when you change something, so you’ll get another little dialogue box asking if you do want to redefine this AutoCorrect entry. Press Yes (if you do).

and there you go: Liz Broomfield has changed into Lionel Blair.

Today we’ve learned why to use AutoCorrect and how to personalise it to help you type efficiently.  If you’ve found this article helpful, please leave a comment or click one of the “like” buttons below! Thank you,

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents. Find all the short cuts here …

Looking at the search engine searches people have done before coming to this website, I’ve realised I need to publish some notes on how to count the words in your Word document. This information covers Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, although most of the screenshots are from Word 2007.

How do I count the number of words in my Word 2007 document?

Word 2007 and 2010 handily display your word count at the bottom of the screen. Well, it should be there. Let’s see …

 But what if it’s not there? If you want to display your word count at the bottom of your document, right click with your mouse on the lower menu bar – that’s the blue bit at the bottom of the window, indicated with an arrow on this screen shot:

Do take a moment to marvel at all the different things you can do on this menu bar – we will come back to them another time! Now, when you’ve clicked on Word Count, you should see your word count at the bottom of the window:

OK, so that’s one way, but what if you want more information, such as the number of characters (maybe you’re writing some text that has to keep to a certain character limit)? Never fear, there are often two ways to do things in Word, and this is no exception.

We’re going to stop looking at the bottom of the screen and move up to those tabs at the top. Click on the Review tab and you will see the Word Count option to the left:

 Click on Word Count and you will get a little dialogue box telling you all sorts of information …

Now, what if you want to count just the words in a particular section of your document (you might be trying to keep to a word limit per chapter or be writing lots of short articles you want to check)? Simply highlight the section of text you want to count, then either look at the bottom of the screen, where it will tell you that you have highlighted x out of a total of y words, or click on Word Count on the Review tab and your dialogue box will tell you just about the words you’ve highlighted:

How do I count the number of words in a Word 2010 document?

Word 2010 works in exactly the same as Word 2007 as far as the lower menu bar goes, so just follow the instructions above to show the word count at the bottom of your document.

When it comes to the Review tab and Word Count option, it’s all pretty much in the same place, but looks a little bit different:

How do I check the number of words in a Word 2003 document?

In Word 2003, you can access Word Count from the Tools drop down menu.

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into! This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents. Find all the short cuts here …

Have you come across AutoCorrect yet? Open up a Word document and type “teh”. Did it magically change to “the” in front of your eyes? That’s AutoCorrect.

So, it’s great for correcting common typing mistakes that lots of people make. But did you know that you can harness its power to help you write and type more efficiently and faster? In this article, I’ll tell you more about AutoCorrect and explain where to find it in different versions of Word, so you can tinker with it to tailor it to your requirements. In the next post, I explain just how to do that.

How to access AutoCorrect in Word 2003

Let’s look at Word 2003 first. You can find AutoCorrect under the Tools screen (I have to admit that it was so much better when it was so accessible, right here off a main menu. Nowadays, they like to hide it!). Click on Tools and then near the bottom, you’ll find AutoCorrect Options.

Once you’ve clicked on AutoCorrect Options, you’ll find yourself at a screen that will start to look familiar as you work your way through this article. This is where you can see what is already set up, and delete / change / add AutoCorrect entries as you wish. More about that in the next article!

How to access AutoCorrect in Word 2007

Here is how to access AutoCorrect in Word 2007. When I first moved over to Word 2007, I found it a bit hard to track down AutoCorrect – the key is to click on that Office button in the top left corner of the screen. When you do that, a menu will come up below the button, with a list of the files you’ve recently accessed (that’s what I’ve blanked out, for confidentiality purposes!), with a list of things you can do and, right at the bottom, a Word Options button. Click that button.

Once you have clicked on the Word Options button, you’re confronted with another menu (oh, for the simplicity of Word 2003!). You’ll find lots of intriguing options here, some of which we’ll be exploring in further articles, but for now, what you want is Proofing, about half way down on the left hand side. Click on Proofing and you will get a menu including the heading AutoCorrect Options. Click on the AutoCorrect Options button …

… and you come to a rather familiar screen, offering you a place to delete, change and add AutoCorrect entries as you wish. More about that in the next article! Note that you can also set up a shortcut button on your Quick Access Toolbar if you use this a lot.

How to access AutoCorrect in Word 2010

Now, in Word 2010 I feel like they’ve buried AutoCorrect just that one level deeper. But we’ll find it! To access AutoCorrect in Word 2010, you need to first click on that File tab, one to the left of Home, to which Word defaults. This has replaced the Office button from Word 2007. Anyway, Click on the File tab and you will be given a menu which, handily enough, doesn’t have a “Word Options” entry, but just Options. Click on Options.

Once you have clicked on Options, you will be given a new menu. This is quite similar to the one in Word 2007. Choose Proofing and then AutoCorrect Options.

… and here is your menu where you can see what is already set up, and delete / change / add AutoCorrect entries as you wish. More about that in the next article! Note that you can also set up a shortcut button on your Quick Access Toolbar if you use this a lot.

In the second half of this article, we look at how to tailor the automatic corrections to suit your purpose, whether you have a word you just can’t spell or type correctly, or you need to type a lot of words fast and want to auto-type particular common phrases.

Many thanks to Katharine O’Moore Klopf for the Word 2003 screen shots!

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents. Find all the short cuts here …

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents.

Sometimes you really want to change a sentence from, maybe, all lower case to All Title Case, or ALL CAPITALS to all lower case, or some other variant.

And you know how to do it, right: delete the sentence and retype it, or delete the first letter of each word and retype it, or turn on overtype then forget to turn it back to insert when you’ve finished … well, there is a way to just do it with a couple of keystrokes!

How do I change all small letters to all capitals or all capitals to all lower case letters?

This is such a simple one. Highlight your sentence (1). With the sentence still highlighted, press shift and F3 at the same time. Magic! With each press of shift-F3 it will cycle through Title Case (2), UPPER CASE (3) and then back to lower case (4).

This is so useful if you’re grappling with a bibliography you’ve written or you’re editing (especially when the capitalisation in article or book titles is not consistent), or if you accidentally type something all in capitals.

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

Find all the short cuts here …

I was inspired to write this post after having to put yet another student’s bibliography into alphabetical order. I know the quick and easy way to do this – but I don’t think a lot of people know that you can do this!

So, you’ve got your bibliography, and you’ve been very good and followed the rules for setting it out (I’ve used Harvard method here) but it’s not in alphabetical order by author surname, and, except in certain cases,* it really should be.

*A very few referencing systems ask for the bibliography to be in the order in which the references appear in the text. I’ve hardly ever had to deal with them. But I like completeness!

So, a lovely list of books but not in order by the authors’ surnames. How can we resolve this without swapping all the lines around?

First, highlight all the text you want to alphabetise. Then, make sure you’ve got the Home tab at the front. See that little button you’ve never even seen before, next to the paragraph mark?

Press the A-Z button and up pops a dialogue box.

There are all sorts of ways in which you can order the text, which are very similar to the ways you can order text and numbers in Excel. You can even specify whether what you’re sorting has a header row (I’m not sure why you’d want to do that, as you can just exclude the header row when you’re doing the highlighting, but I suppose it would be useful if you realise you’ve accidentally highlighted the headers too). I’ve sorted by Paragraph, Text, and in Ascending Order here, and to be honest, that’s what I always do. Click on OK, and look what you get:

Here’s our bibliography in order by author surname with just a highlight of the text and a few clicks – much quicker and with far less risk of human error than doing it manually.

Note: if your results come out a bit odd and have split your entries up into two halves, reverse your alphabetising by either hitting Control-Z or the Undo button, and check there aren’t any pesky hard returns hiding out in the middle of paragraphs (the best way to do this is to click the Paragraph button, to the right of the A-Z button and look out for bent arrows signifying carriage returns). Get rid of those and alphabetise again to your heart’s content!

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents.

If you have enjoyed this post and found it useful, please click on the “share” buttons below or tell your friends and colleagues about it! Thank you!

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

Find all the short cuts here …