Autocorrect Case Sensitivity

G

Guest

Hello

Can anyone confirm whether the 'Autocorrect' option in Microsoft Word is
supposed to be case sensitive? I'm have the following in place:

Entry 1: If 'HIS' is typed then the required abbreviation 'IHS' appears -
this is fine.
Entry 2: If 'ihs' is typed then the word 'his' appears - this is fine.

The PROBLEM is when 'IHS' is entered, it changes to 'HIS' and I can't add an
uppercase entry as it says entry 2 is present. It looks to be referring to
this.

Is there any way around it other than removing entry 2?

Thanks in advance!
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

The way AutoCorrect works is that, if an entry is entered in lowercase, then
the correction matches the case of the typed material, correcting (as you've
seen) "ihs" to "his" and "IHS" to "HIS" (and also, presumably, "Ihs" to
"His"). I don't think there's any way around this except to press Ctrl+Z
after the unwanted "correction."

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
J

Jay Freedman

The case sensitivity of AutoCorrect is complex. As described at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/118845,

- If the AutoCorrect entry is defined with all lower case, then it will
change the word regardless of how you type it in the document (that is, not
case-sensitive).

- If the AutoCorrect entry is defined with all upper case or mixed case,
then it will change the word only when you type it in the document with the
same casing (it is case-sensitive).

The answer to your question is as you suspected -- the only way to keep the
'IHS' abbreviation when it's typed correctly is to delete the entry for
replacing 'ihs' with 'his'. Having done that, you may want to define one
that replaces 'ihs' with 'IHS'. Besides allowing you to type the
abbreviation in lower case, it should also make it obvious when you typed
'ihs' but really meant 'his'.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
G

Guest

Thanks for the clarification, Mark

Suzanne S. Barnhill said:
The way AutoCorrect works is that, if an entry is entered in lowercase, then
the correction matches the case of the typed material, correcting (as you've
seen) "ihs" to "his" and "IHS" to "HIS" (and also, presumably, "Ihs" to
"His"). I don't think there's any way around this except to press Ctrl+Z
after the unwanted "correction."

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Note Jay's suggestions, which should help.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
G

Guest

Thanks for the explanation!, Mark

Jay Freedman said:
The case sensitivity of AutoCorrect is complex. As described at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/118845,

- If the AutoCorrect entry is defined with all lower case, then it will
change the word regardless of how you type it in the document (that is, not
case-sensitive).

- If the AutoCorrect entry is defined with all upper case or mixed case,
then it will change the word only when you type it in the document with the
same casing (it is case-sensitive).

The answer to your question is as you suspected -- the only way to keep the
'IHS' abbreviation when it's typed correctly is to delete the entry for
replacing 'ihs' with 'his'. Having done that, you may want to define one
that replaces 'ihs' with 'IHS'. Besides allowing you to type the
abbreviation in lower case, it should also make it obvious when you typed
'ihs' but really meant 'his'.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 

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