Living in Outlook: Making AutoCorrect Work for You
The Living in Outlook series is about sharing tips and workflows around real-world scenarios. We’ll start the conversation with a topic – you can add to it by posting your tips and workflows in the comments!
I tend to shorten long project names into acronyms to save myself time while composing e-mails, but after 6 months of accrual I’ve begun to get confused by my own shorthand. I’ve always relied on the AutoCorrect feature to fix small typos that happen when I’m trying to get an e-mail out in a hurry and recently a colleague introduced me to a great new way to use AutoCorrect to help with my acronym problem. AutoCorrect can be used to automatically expand acronyms or other custom text, freeing you from needing to type out long phrases!
Setting up AutoCorrect is an easy process, but it can also be time consuming if you use as many acronyms as I do. I’ll walk you through setting up the first one.
Setting the AutoCorrect Preferences
|
1. Open the Tools | Options dialog, click on the Mail Format tab and then Editor Options. |
 |
|
2. Click Proofing | AutoCorrect Options… |
 |
| 3. Now that we’re in the AutoCorrect dialog it’s time to set up an acronym that I’d like to be automatically expanded. I’ll use DCFS (which stands for “Department of Children and Family Services,” a volunteer project I’ve been working on for a couple months) as an example.
Since I might not want the acronym expanded every time I type it I’ve added a symbol at the end of the acronym: “>”. Only acronyms that I’ve defined with that symbol will get automatically expanded. This way I am be able to type DCFS or DCFS>, depending on what I want to happen.
Type the acronym “DCFS>” under Replace and enter the corresponding replacement phrase “Department of Children and Family Services” in the box under With. |
 |
|
4. Click the Add button and you’ve successfully configured AutoCorrect to expand your acronym. |
 |
I did this for a number of acronyms and phrases that I use on a regular basis and it’s saved me a lot of time since I no longer need to type out those phrases. Since Outlook uses Word to compose e-mail this will work in Word as well without any additional work required to set it up.
Allie Bellew
Outlook Program Manager
