Why won't Word enter my AutoText?

[majorbroncosfan]

I have a bunch of AutoText entries for medical transcriptionists. When they type a short entry (i.e. 7351 or 7351EX), AutoText works fine. When they go longer, AutoText doesn't work. This is an extremely critical application function for us. Does anybody have any ideas?

Jeff

 

[bkpchs237]

majorbroncosfan,

I'm not entirely sure that you've provided enough information to troubleshoot your inquiry, but I might have a little insight here. First, I want to make sure that we're talking about AutoText entries, not AutoCorrect entries.

With AutoText entries, you can first type the text on the document, then highlight it and go to Tools, AutoCorrect, AutoText tab and then click Add to add it to the list. The machine will put some sort of appropriate name to it or you can name it yourself. Then to use it you go to Insert, AutoText, Normal and choose the item you made earlier to insert it into the document.

With AutoCorrect entries, you type out what you want to replace text that you type in with into the document, then highlight it and go to Tools, AutoCorrect, AutoCorrect tab. The text that you highlighted will be in the "With" part of the Replace With split boxes in the middle of this dialog box. Then you put in what you want to type in to be replaced (such as zxn) and choose Add to add it to the list. If you've chosen to add a Plain text entry it cannot exceed 255 characters, but choosing Formatted text will allow the entire entry to be inserted. Just make sure that you haven't added something that may already be on your Exceptions list.

Now you shouldn't have any trouble with the AutoCorrect entries as long as Word accepts it to the list and your AutoCorrect list file (*.acl) hasn't been corrupted. The trouble you may be having with AutoText entries is that they need to be stored in a template somewhere. You will notice that when you go to Add it there is a drop-down list at the bottom as to where you want to place the item: "All Active Templates" or "Normal.dot" etc. Depending on where you place it is whether or not you will be able to use it in the future. Also, when you close Word you may be prompted to save the Normal template changes (activated by the check box in the Tools, Options, Save tab, Prompt to save Normal template box). You will need to say Yes to this to save any changes you've made or they will be discarded upon exiting the file/program.

If you continue to have problems with your current program setup, I would try deleting or renaming your normal.dot file and starting fresh with a new one (Word will recreate it the next time you start the program). Of course, you will lose any customizations that you've made thus far and they will need to be recreated, but if they aren't working as expected anyway it may be a small price to pay.

Hope this helps.