Feb 03, 2017

The main purpose of AutoCorrect is to automatically fix commonly misspelled words. The idea is simple; you type a word incorrectly and, as soon as you press the spacebar at the end of the word, the AutoCorrect entry changes it to the correct spelling. This is, of course, if the way in which it was spelled incorrectly is built into the system.

But what if you often misspell a particular word that isn’t built in? You can create your own AutoCorrect entry!

There is also another good use for the AutoCorrect feature. If you often have to type a particular name or a series of words, and find it very tedious to have to type it out every time (or copy and paste it from somewhere else), then you could add that as an AutoCorrect entry. You could it so that when you type an abbreviation, it replaces it with the full name.

Commonly misspelled words

As you probably know, a word with a red wavy underline has been picked up by the spell checker as a mistake. If you right-click on the word it will list some potential corrections.

To add this word to the AutoCorrect list, follow this procedure:

1. Choose File, Options
2. Choose the Proofing category
3. Click the AutoCorrect Options button
4. In the Replace box, type the incorrect version of the word (make sure to type the word in lower case)
5. In the With box, type the correct version of the word (again in lower case)
6. Click Add and then OK

Note that you can add the word to any of the Office applications and it will be available in them all.

Replace abbreviation with full name

Long-winded names of organisations, places, products, ingredients or even people can be tedious to have to type over and over again. A simple AutoCorrect entry can mean only having to type 3 or 4 letters to get that name in full.

To create an AutoCorrect entry like this, follow the same procedure as above except at steps 4 and 5 put the abbreviation and the full name, respectively, in the boxes. Use the proper capitalisation for the entry in the With box.

Include formatting in the AutoCorrect entry

As a potential added benefit, you can also include formatting with the entry. For example, if you want the name to always appear in a certain font size and colour, the AutoCorrect entry can include it.

To do this, first the text and formatting has to be typed, formatted and selected. After that, the procedure is the same as above except that the With box will be pre-filled with the selected text.

So, to make typing quicker and more accurate, take advantage of these clever AutoCorrect features!

For more information, take a look at our Microsoft Word courses.