Managing the AutoCorrect List

Word's AutoCorrect feature can be either a big time-saver or a royal pain, depending on how you plan to use Word. In reality, the AutoCorrect feature uses a list of words that is shared by all applications in the Office suite, so changes you make to the AutoCorrect list in Word will also affect how you make changes in Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office tools.

So how do you manage the AutoCorrect list? The normal way is to choose Tools | AutoCorrect and then make changes in the various tabs accessible from the resulting dialog box. If you want to do a mass delete of all the AutoCorrect entries in your system, you can do so using a macro such as the following:

Sub DeleteAutoCorrectEntries()
    Dim acEntry As AutoCorrectEntry
    For Each acEntry In AutoCorrect.Entries
        acEntry.Delete
    Next acEntry
End Sub

Note that this macro is no respecter of AutoCorrect entries: it deletes them all. Because of this, you may want to back up your AutoCorrect entries, as described next.

When you make changes to the AutoCorrect list, those changes are saved in files that have the ACL filename extension. Some Word users simply refer to these as "ACL files." (Wonder where they got that name?) The exact filename and location of the files can vary depending on your particular operating system setup and the version of Word/Office you are using. In general, though, if you want to backup your AutoCorrect entries, just look for files with this extension. If you want to move your AutoCorrect entries from one system to another, just copy the ACL file. (Make sure you only do this with like versions of Word. Not paying attention to the program version can have unintended consequences.) Specific instructions can be found in the Microsoft Knowledge Base; just search for "ACL AutoCorrect."

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1717) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Managing the AutoCorrect List.