Using the Autocorrect Feature of Microsoft Word

Autocorrect for Special Characters and Other Shortcut Typing

Sep 25, 2009

Corporate names and mottos can be long and tedious to type. A special character takes some time to retrieve every time it's needed. Autocorrect can help.

Nearly everyone who has spent serious time on a word processor knows they have terms, phrases, names, or special characters that get typed with great regularity.

Those same individuals know that some of this typing is tricky with unusual character combinations that may slow down their normal typing speed or even result in errors. The autocorrect feature in Microsoft Word can help speed the typing on its way as well as ensure accuracy.

What Does Autocorrect Do?

Autocorrect runs in the background of Microsoft Word. It is the reason “the” is always spelled correctly and not “teh." When a typist types “seperate," autocorrect comes in and changes it to “separate” as soon as the SPACE bar or ENTER key is struck at the end of the word.

If the typist isn’t looking, and sometimes even when they are, they don’t even see the change take place. There are several hundreds of these frequently misspelled and mistyped words in the list. The good news is there’s room for more and the “mistypings” can act as triggers for a longer word or phrase.

Accessing Autocorrect

While the autocorrect feature is available in Word 2007 and earlier versions, the method for accessing it is slightly different. Once it is accessed, all the functions are pretty much the same.

The dialog box displays a two-column table. The left column (Replace column) contains actual typed characters and the right column (With column) displays the autocorrected text that will appear in the document. The first several rows display shortcuts for some special characters like copyright symbols and smiley faces. Then the typos/misspellings begin in earnest. The words are alphabetized by the misspelled versions of the word.

Using Autocorrect

With the ever shrinking world, companies hire staff from all ethnic backgrounds. Some have very common and familiar names like Smith or Jones. Others have less familiar names. These names may be extremely long, have a half dozen or more consecutive consonants before a vowel appears, or a combination of both.

For demonstration purposes Superman’s magical enemy, Mr. Mxyzptlk, will be used. Mr. Mxyzptlk is the vice president of marketing at his company. He is frequently referenced in memos and policy statements. Unfortunately because of the unusual configuration of letters, his name is frequently misspelled. Here is how autocorrect could be used to correctly type Mr. Mxyzptlk’s name every time.

The next time it is necessary to type the vice president‘s name simply type “mxp” and continue typing as usual. Autocorrect changes the “mxp” to “Mr. Mxyzptlk” automatically. The replace column should not contain a real word. Because autocorrect gives no warning it is operating, an autocorrection could occur and the typist would be unaware that it took place. If by some chance the Replace characters are typed by accident a quick CTRL + Z will undo the autocorrect and allow the typist to continue working.

Shortcuts to Special Characters

An international corporation deals in many different currencies. For this example the Japanese yen (¥) will be used. (For information on the use of special characters in Word read “Using Non-keyboard Characters in MS Word.”) The ASCII code for yen is 165. To avoid the necessity of looking up the ASCII code and using the ALT + 0165 entry each time the yen symbol (¥) needs to be used, the typist goes to autocorrect and:

Whenever the yen symbol is needed, the typist simply types “y=” (no quotes). This will work the same way the © is produced by typing “(c)” (no quotes).

Whether it’s the Department of Family and Child Care Services, lysergic acid diethylamide, or the European monetary unit Euro symbol (€), Word’s autocorrect feature can help improve accuracy and speed up the entire typing process.

Additional Information

The copyright of the article Using the Autocorrect Feature of Microsoft Word in Office/Business Software is owned by Joe Nowak. Permission to republish Using the Autocorrect Feature of Microsoft Word in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.