Time saving tips with AutoText

Word 365 2016 2013 2010 2003
If you're a fan of the way AutoText worked in earlier versions of Word, you may be dismayed to see it buried as one of the Galleries in the Building Blocks Organizer. Fortunately, it's as easy as ever to create and retrieve an AutoText entry using the F3 key.

The steps are nearly identical to creating a Quick Part:

   1.   Select the text or graphics from a document that you want to save as an AutoText entry.

   2.   The quickest way to create the AutoText entry from a document fragment is to press Alt+F3 to open Create New Building Block box, in which you should:

Quick Part in Word 2007
  • type a name of new AutoText
  • from the Gallery drop-down menu, choose AutoText
  • enter a Category and Description (optional)

   3.   Click OK to save the entry.

To insert an AutoText entry in your text, just type the name (entered in step 2 above), and then press F3. Word replaces the name with the entire AutoText entry. Now the only thing that's missing is a menu that provides quick and easy access to your AutoText entries.

You can resolve this issue too, by adding AutoText to your Quick Access toolbar. Follow these steps:

   1.   In Word's upper-left corner, right-click anywhere on the Quick Access toolbar.

   2.   From the shortcut menu, choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar... to open the Word Options box.

Customize Quick Access Toolbar Word 2007

   3.   In the Choose commands from drop-down menu, choose All Commands (it's at the very bottom of the list).

Word 2007 Options

   4.   Scroll down to AutoText (the options are alphabetized). Double-click to add the command to the box on the right.

   5.   Click OK to close the box.

The AutoText drop-down menu is now part of the Quick Access toolbar. When you click the icon that looks like a keyboard with a hand pointing to it, you see visual representations of your AutoText entries. As an added bonus, a button at the bottom of the menu lets you save any selection as an AutoText entry.

AutoText in Word 2007

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