The idiocy of Autotext in 2007

[Phil]

Further to my complaint that 2003 Autotext is missing, how's this for
the proof. In 2003 I had an autotext 'anti' for 'anti-realism'.
Because of what I am working on, usually when i type anti, '-realism'
is about to follow s when 2003's bubble asked me if that's what i
wanted i could press enter for yes, or ignore the bubble and carry on
typing.

In 2007, - seems to be taken as a signal to do the expansion, so when
I type anti-slavery in an Outlook2007 email, when I glance at the
screen it actually says 'anti-realismslavery'.

I stick by my allegation - the 2003 facility of Autotext is simply
completely missing from 2007!

Can you imagine, in the days of typewriters, Remington coming along
with a new model in which all of the key positions are changed, and
some of them do completely different things!

PR

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Phil,

Autotext is the engine behind all of the Office 2007 Building Blocks features, just expanded into 36 galleries, a lot of predefined
and user defined categories. The one 'missing' part is the MS disabled display and choice to use the badges (Microsoft's term for
the AutoText-Autocomplete tooltips) for an autotext entry. *All* of the predefined Building Blocks from Microsoft can be removed so
you can have just yours, and the AutoText gallery can be added to the Quick Access Toolbar, where if a 'category' name matches a
'style' name in Word, can lay out in a matter similar to the prior version.

If your entry was AutoText rather than AutoCorrect, then pressing F3 after typing 'Anti' in your example should pop in your
'Anti-Realism' result. (i.e. there is no autoComplete (expansion) of AutoText entries in 2007 other than dates).

If your entry is, instead, an Autocorrect, rather than AutoText entry, where Anti- is listed as being replaced by Anti-Realism then
the result you saw would be the same in Word 2003 or Word 2007.

Word and Outlook have been pretty much separated (i.e. Outlook uses a cloned partial version of Word as the editor it doesn't use
Word and while it inherits the custom building blocks, it has fewer options for managing them. As a guess, the majority of Word
users are 'casual' users (i.e. they don't use it full time in work or at home) and for many of them using the mouse in a visual
environment to select content would be their likely usage method, more than some of the keyboard choices. As mentioned in other
threads on this topic, it's hoped that some form of Autocomplete will be enabled in the next version of Office for boilerplate
(autotext/building blocks) but at present it is disabled in the 2007 version. You can, if you have a particular set of entries you
use frequently, assign any Building Block a keyboard shortcut as well.


FWIW, for a bit of trivia Remington actually did introduce a typewriter with the keys all rearranged. It improved typing speed,
but... <g>
http://staff.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters/rem-portables.htm#remrand1
http://theworldofstuff.com/dvorak

As to User Interface - there's the classic typewriter 'interface' the QWERTY, that was in itself a 'rearranged' interface, although
createdd to overcome the mechanical limitations of the typewriter hammers getting caught on each other for speed typists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#History_and_purposes
Gotta wonder what the first typists were saying when were first switched over to learn that layout (grab the white out <g>)

Perhaps that's still a problem for the little electronic 'hammers' putting the text on the screens of computers <g>? So, it's
certainly true that 'better' isn't always what is accepted, or permanent

=============
Further to my complaint that 2003 Autotext is missing, how's this for
the proof. In 2003 I had an autotext 'anti' for 'anti-realism'.
Because of what I am working on, usually when i type anti, '-realism'
is about to follow s when 2003's bubble asked me if that's what i
wanted i could press enter for yes, or ignore the bubble and carry on
typing.

In 2007, - seems to be taken as a signal to do the expansion, so when
I type anti-slavery in an Outlook2007 email, when I glance at the
screen it actually says 'anti-realismslavery'.

I stick by my allegation - the 2003 facility of Autotext is simply
completely missing from 2007!

Can you imagine, in the days of typewriters, Remington coming along
with a new model in which all of the key positions are changed, and
some of them do completely different things!

PR>>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Phil]

Thanks for this Bob, but I stand by my point that 2003 Autotext IS NO
LONGER PROVIDED. That facility used a bubble and its absence
completely changes the UI. Here's how it worked - I set up loads of
Autotext entries for all the long words I constantly misytpe and/or
misspell. Now the whole 'press F3' approach assumes one sits there
and consciously think "I want to insert a particular word or text now"
but that's not how a speed writer works. What I do is just type -
e.g. "Fred is an anti-realist and Joe is anti-slavery" - I don't sit
and figure out "ah, I remember, I have anti-realism as an Autotext" -
I just type it in, and on 2003, when I came to the first 'anti' I
would get a bubble and press enter, I would then also get a bubble on
the second 'anti' and ignore it. The F3 mechanism assumes I can
remember all the possibly 100s of Autotext entries I've set up.

So, what is offered is a fundamentally different facility, that's been
my point. Nothing can be done about it, I just think its a shame that
Msoft think that highly useable bits of UI can be just dumped as
though they never existed.

Phil

 

[Phil]

Further to below, I now notice that on p234 of the WORD 2007 bible by
Herb Tyson, exactly this critical point is made!


Phil

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The idiocy of this is that you should have used AutoCorrect instead of
AutoText for this sort of correction.

 

[Phil]

With respect, that is categorically not the case. Read p234 of the
WORD 2007 bible by
Herb Tyson, to understand how Autotext was always meant to work in
2003, and thus how I used it, very successfully. Autocorrect would
specifically never have done what I described.

I have 2003 loaded at same time as 2007 and I can assure you that it
is far easier for me to type fast using 2003 AutoText.

Phil

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Phil,

Your point wasn't missed The terminology differs a bit from what Microsoft has named the changes.

Yes, the AutoText feature has been expanded and has a lot of nice capabilities it didn't have before and the 'grouping by Word
styles' in Word 2003 for Autotext entries (which confused some folks to the point of just not bothering with Autotext) has been more
or less removed in Word 2007.

Yes, Autocomplete suggestions for AutoText entries - the 'badges' (as Microsoft calls them) or 'bubbles' (as you call them) - have
been turned off by Microsoft, but AutoText has not been turned off. (The checkbox for autocomplete suggestions is even still
'there' but it doesn't work). Yes, it would be nice if we had the choice to turn it on or off, but as you mentioned, we don't

There are 3rd party products that will still do the Autocomplete of entries (that you store in those products) the way Autocomplete
did before for AutoText).

FWIW, as a speed typist, unless I was replacing a whole clause of a contract or paragraph by typing a single Word then it watching
those 'bubble's would actually be slower for me than just typing the text, as it seemed unnatural to hit enter in the middle of a
sentence, so F3 was used

The focus in the ribbon based version is visual context, so rather than memorize you get to actually 'see' the entry as it will
appear in the document by using one of the 36 galleries on the ribbon or on the Quick Access Toolbar, and each entry could have its
own keyboard shortcut. Yes, 'power users' sometimes lose featues, but often folks who weren't frequent users of the app will use it
more because they're able to better locate and use features they weren't aware of before.

As to Herb's book (he's one of the Word MVPs), there have been debates over 'bibles' as long as they've been around <g> and Herb is
here often enough that he can comment on his own 'chapter and verse' . Some folks will like the Building Blocks (of which
Autotext is a part) some won't.

On Suzanne's mention of Autocorrect, it may have been able to do what you want, the difference being that instead of using Enter to
accept anti- replacement in your first case then 'ignoring' the 2nd change, with Autocorrect you would basically keep typing for the
first one and could use Ctrl+Z (undo) for the second one. A difference being that instead of a 'bubble' Word is sort of suggesting
by showing the result in context. It's a possible way to overcome the 'loss' of Autocomplete suggestions feature throughout Office
2007.

I suspect that with the large AutoText engine entries (Building Blocks) the performance hit to Word would have been noticable, which
could be why it's still around for later (version-next) consideration

===============
Thanks for this Bob, but I stand by my point that 2003 Autotext IS NO
LONGER PROVIDED. That facility used a bubble and its absence
completely changes the UI. Here's how it worked - I set up loads of
Autotext entries for all the long words I constantly misytpe and/or
misspell. Now the whole 'press F3' approach assumes one sits there
and consciously think "I want to insert a particular word or text now"
but that's not how a speed writer works. What I do is just type -
e.g. "Fred is an anti-realist and Joe is anti-slavery" - I don't sit
and figure out "ah, I remember, I have anti-realism as an Autotext" -
I just type it in, and on 2003, when I came to the first 'anti' I
would get a bubble and press enter, I would then also get a bubble on
the second 'anti' and ignore it. The F3 mechanism assumes I can
remember all the possibly 100s of Autotext entries I've set up.

So, what is offered is a fundamentally different facility, that's been
my point. Nothing can be done about it, I just think its a shame that
Msoft think that highly useable bits of UI can be just dumped as
though they never existed.

Phil >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*