auto text - letter - home address - how create

[Ahscot]

I have XP SP2 and Word 2007. I gather that auto text is now in Insert/Quick
Parts/Building Blocks. Despite reading the Word Help and Googling the
question, for the life of me I can't work out how to create an auto text
entry in respect of my home address, so I may add it conveniently to my
letters. When I get to the default building blocks, I run out completely of
any idea of what to do. All advice gratefully received.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Create the address, select it, and press Alt+F3. Select AutoText (or Header)
as the gallery in which to place the building block. Better still, create a
letterhead template that already contains your letterhead; see
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/Letterhead.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Ahscot]

Many thanks,

Following your instructions, it took several tries to get the process to
work. Nothing in the Help, of course, as auto text replaced by this new
process, but a mention of that in the Help would have been extremely
helpful!

During it, I noticed a series of playing card shapes appeared at the top of
the ribbon, each only big enough to contain a capital letter, the first
being 'I', in two rows, about 1" apart, one row and below that another row,
the letters apparently in a sequence, the whole sort of floating above the
ribbon. When I clicked on one of these cards, they all disappeared. Any
ideas what they were?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Those are the ScreenTips that show you which key you would have to press as
a keyboard shortcut for the adjacent button. They appear when you press Alt,
just as, in previous versions, when you pressed Alt the focus was
transferred to the Menu Bar, allowing you to use keyboard shortcuts to
select menu items. I'm guessing that you were pressing Alt a bit ahead of
F3.

I would still recommend a letterhead template over this method, however.

BTW, did you know that if you have your address correctly filled out in User
Information, you can insert a UserAddress field? You could save that as an
AutoText or AutoCorrect entry if you wanted to.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Ahscot]

Thanks,

I have used templates before and I agree I could do so again. Why, in point
of fact, do you recommend that over auto text?

Thanks for the other information.

You MVP guys sure do a great job.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

My assumption is that when I begin a letter, there are more things about it
that are different from an ordinary document than just the address at the
top. I usually want a different font size (13 point instead of 12, for
example, if it's a short business letter). I may want different (more
generous) margins. I may need different styles. I usually make life easy for
myself by setting up some boilerplate text (in the required styles). I may
insert a date field in the template so that I don't have to type the date in
my letter. This is the same rationale I would apply to any template.

In particular, however, for letters that may run to more than one page, I
want the ability to customize the First Page Header (with my letterhead) and
the Header (which will contain just a page number).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org