Sharing AutoText Entries

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 4, 2019)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


1

David wondered if there is a way that a small group of workers can share the same set of AutoText entries, without each of them needing to set up their own entries.

AutoText entries are stored in templates. Even if you don't specify a particular template to be the recipient of a new AutoText entry, it is still stored in a template—the Normal.dot template.

If you want to share AutoText entries, the key is to get the entries out of the Normal.dot template and into a different template that you can all share. Suppose, for a moment, that you store the AutoText entries in a template called Group.dot. This template could be stored in a mutually accessible network folder, and then referenced by a shortcut in each user's Startup folder. (That's the Word Startup folder, which is identified by choosing Tools | Options | File Locations and looking at the Startup entry.)

In order to put AutoText entries into the shared Group.dot template, you can either create them from scratch and specify that they be placed there, or you can use the Organizer to transfer the AutoText entries from one template (such as Normal.dot) to another (such as the shared template).

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (345) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Browsing by Heading

The Object Browser can be a great (albeit underused) way of navigating through your document. One handy way to move about ...

Discover More

Highlighting the Rows of Selected Cells

If you lose your place on the screen quite often, you might find it helpful to have not just a single cell highlighted, ...

Discover More

Averaging without Hidden Cells

Grabbing an average of a range of cells is easy using Excel functions. If you want that average to ignore hidden cells ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! Are you ready to harness the full power of Word 2013 to create professional documents? In this comprehensive guide you'll learn the skills and techniques for efficiently building the documents you need for your professional and your personal life. Check out Word 2013 In Depth today!

More WordTips (menu)

Defining Protected Sections as AutoText

AutoText is a very useful tool. But what if the text you want to use when creating an AutoText entry is protected and you ...

Discover More

Organizing AutoText Entries

Want to get more organized with your AutoText entries? Here's how you can take advantage of the organizational features ...

Discover More

AutoText Behaving Erratically

The AutoText feature of Word is a great tool for adding common text or phrases with a minimum of fuss. What do you do if ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 7 - 7?

2019-11-04 14:50:28

Cathy

I have AutoText for a specific report. I have a template for that report. The AutoText is not in the Normal template, only in the report template. In the past, doing a "Save As" with a new file name for a template kept the AutoText. So if I had Report Template 2018-07-02 and saved it as Report Template 2018-09-06, the AutoText was in both files. Now when I save the template with a new name, all the AutoText disappears.

I've seen recommendations, such as yours above, to use the Organizer. But it no longer has an AutoText tab. How can we copy AutoText to a new template? There are many, many entries I need to move forward into each new iteration. Re-copying all the entries each time I edit and update the template is not an option. This has been wreaking havoc with use for over a year and seemed to be triggered with a newer version of Word. Thanks for your help.


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.