autotext losing style association

  • Thread starter Thread starter Irwin Feuerstein
  • Start date Start date
I

Irwin Feuerstein

Hello. I have a document that uses a custom template. The styles I use
are in the custom template. There is autotext in the normal template
that is specific to a particular style from the custom template. The
autotext appropriately is available to my document when I am in a
paragraph using that style. I never really intended for the autotext
to be in the normal template, but sometimes it just ends up there and
then I want to move it to the custom template. When I copy it to the
custom template and delete it from the normal template using the
organizer, it then seems to lose its association with the style and is
no longer available to that style. It can then be found in the
autotext category called normal. So clearly, the move has stripped its
association with the custom style and placed it in the normal style.
Why? And once an autotext is associated with a style, is there an easy
way to change it other than reinserting in somewhere, copying it to a
paragraph with that style, and resaving it? That would be laborious as
I will need to move many of them. Where is this style association
information stored, and is there a way to see it or change it?

Thanks, IMF
 
In order to keep an AutoText entry in a specific category/style when
you want to copy it to a different template, you should copy both the
AutoText entry and its associated paragraph style to that template.

Note that if you want to change an existing AutoText category/style
you need to recreate the entry, after applying the desired style.

For more about AutoText, see:

Using AutoText
http://www.word.mvps.org/faqs/customization/AutoText.htm
 
Thanks for writing back. The style is already in the target template
according to the organizer, and is not and has never been in
normal.dot.

Too bad there isn't a tool to change the autotext style. The
information has to be stored somewhere.

So, reiterating, I have lots of autotext that mistakenly got put in
the normal template, but is associated with a style in the template
attached to the document. When I move the autotext from the normal
template to the attached template, it loses its style association. Is
there a workaround, or is this just a bug I will have to live with?

Thanks,
Irwin
 
When I tested this before posting my previous response, I got the
impression that for an AutoText entry that was mistakenly saved to the
normal.dot template, it was possible to restore the association
between the style and the AutoText entry in two steps: (1) copy the
style to normal.dot, and then (2) copy the style and the AutoText
entry from normal.dot back to the correct template. But I can't get
this to work now so apparently I did something wrong when I tested it.
:-(

In other words: it seems as though you'll have to manually recreate
each AutoText entry so that it is in the desired style category.

For what it's worth, in the future, remember to use Insert > AutoText
AutoText when you create entries, so that you get to choose the
Click to expand...
correct template initially.
 
If you're working with a specific template attached, you can select that
template in the Insert | AutoText | AutoText dialog, and it will then become
the default when you use Alt+F3 to create new AutoText entries. You have to
remember to change the setting back to "All active templates" when you're
done, or you'll find that the default AT entries are "missing."

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

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