Typing Productivity - Part 3 - Automated Entries

A Free Document Productivity Tool for Word

This tool describes uses an abbreviation system to reduce the typing load for business and technical documents. 

See Part 1 for information on dealing phrases and acronyms. It also contains information abbreviation systems in general and discusses typing expanders.

Part 2 deals with abbreviations for long words and words that are very frequently used.  

This part describes the SmartCorrect tool that automates the job of looking up and adding new abbreviations.

Part 4 allows you to bulk import and export your abbreviations, and includes a dictionary of over 1000 abbreviations.

The B2E System – Part 3 – Automatic Entries

The SmartCorrect tool automates the addition and lookup of Typing Productivity abbreviations. 

When adding, the routine determines the default abbreviation to use for the selected text.

The AutoCorrect dialogue is automatically loaded with the appropriate fields filled in.

• If the text selected is 6 characters or less, SmartCorrect assumes that the value entered is an abbreviation, finds the associated full text equivalent and loads the Autocorrect screen.  This is a simple and effective lookup of an existing abbreviation.  If there is no corresponding full text, the full text field is blank

• If the text word (longer than 6 characters) SmartCorrect assumes that the highlighted text is the full text.  If the text already has an abbreviation, both values are presented.  If there is no corresponding abbreviation, the first and last characters of the abbreviation are shown, and the user simply completes abbreviation to add the entry. See Part 1 for rules for determining the abbreviation.

• If the selected text is a two or more word phrase, SmartCorrect assumes that the highlighted text is the full text.  If the text already has an abbreviation, both values are presented.  If there is no corresponding abbreviation, the abbreviation value is determined and both values presented and the user simply adds the entry.

• If there is no selected text, the AutoCorrect dialogue is opened and no fields are pre-populated.

Important note on usage

When the AutoCorrect dialogue opens, you have type <space> <backspace> to get Autocorrect to setup of for an add or replace.  This is a quirk of calling the dialogue from a shortcut key.  

It is unfortunate that the method requires these two extra keystrokes, but in practice, you hardly notice them, as your fingers stay on the keys. 

Shortcut Key Assignment

The shortcut key is:
dpSmartCorrect: Ctrl+F7

I chose this key because F7 on its own launches the spelling function.

Inspiration

In an earlier post, I described how to place the AutoCorrect function onto the quick action bar so that it could be easily accessed.  If you highlight text before making the standard call, Word assumes that you have selected full text and pre-populates this. 

I wanted to extend this concept and provide a tool that would also pre-populate the abbreviation if it existed or calculate as much as possible of the abbreviation if it was new, and allow me to add it quickly.

Next Post

The next post will provide tools that automate the bulk export and upload of large numbers of entries.