How AutoText In Microsoft Word Can Save You Hours Of Typing

How AutoText In Microsoft Word Can Save You Hours Of Typing
By: Chris Le Roy

Microsoft Word is one of the most powerful desktop publishing tools available on the planet and is incredibly feature rich yet because of its complexity, many features are often unused by Microsoft Word operators. One of the features that I see most under utilised is the AutoText function. The basic overview of AutoText is this, it allows you to recreate or insert common paragraphs into your documents by associating the paragraph to a key word. When you need to insert the paragraph into a document, you simply type in the keyword and then press the Enter key and it inserts the paragraph for you.

So why would this be important?

Well it is quite simple - it is going to save you time! If you work in the Financial Planning Industry, Legal Fraternity, the Banking Industry or any industry where you are required to enter key paragraphs into your documents on a regular basis that don't change regularly then this tool will save you time and money.

For example, in Australia, Financial Planners are required to include in their letters of recommendation for investments key disclaimers. These disclaimers are pretty much stock standard and really don't change all that often. So to save time in producing the letters of investment recommendations, I would simply enter those disclaimers or paragraphs into a Letter Template and then associate those AutoText Entries to that particular template. That means the next time the Financial Planner is doing the letter of recommendation, he simply chooses that template from the New dialog box and then types the disclaimers key word, press the Enter key and the paragraph will automatically be inserted.

The really cool part about the AutoText Function is that when you create your AutoText entries you don't just insert the paragraph of text, you also include all the formatting that has been applied to the paragraph as well. So, if you have parts of the paragraph in italics or in a different color, then this formatting will be applied.