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replacing word automatically when another word is written

Anonymous
2017-10-22T08:29:54+00:00

Hi, 

i am not sure what this feature would be called exactly, but for eg; on my iphone i can literally make the word 'chicken' be replaced with 'hi' every time it is typed in a text. 

is it possible to do this in word 2016?

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  1. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 322.9K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-10-22T08:57:52+00:00

    You can set up an "autocorrect" entry that replaces the keystrokes that you define with whatever you want.

    To do that type the text that you want to be used as the replacement and select it and then go to File>Options>Proofing>AutoCorrect Options and then in the AutoCorrect dialog, you should see the text that you had type in the "With" control on the AutoCorrect tab.  Now type whatever it is that you want to be replaced with the text into the "Replace" control.

    Thereafter, whenever you type the text that you put in the "Replace" control and then press the spacebar, it will be replaced by whatever was in the "With" control.

    Note, you are not limited to the replacement being a single word.

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  1. HansV 462.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-10-22T09:05:29+00:00

    Yes, it's called AutoCorrect.

    Select File > Options.

    Select Proofing in the navigation pane on the left.

    Click AutoCorrect Options...

    Enter the text that you want to replace in the box labeled 'Replace', and the text that you want to replace it with in the box labeled 'With', then click Add.

    Repeat if desired.

    Finally click OK, then OK.

    Remark: the text that you want to replace must be a single word, without spaces or punctuation.

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  1. Stefan Blom 338.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-11-01T09:20:39+00:00

    To correct the text in an existing document, you will have to make use of Find & Replace (repeatedly).

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  2. Charles Kenyon 166.4K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2017-10-31T11:59:24+00:00

    thanks! everything has worked a charm so far and im nearly done. The last thing i need to work out is how can i auto correct a pre existing document or text that ive pasted into word? 

    i cannot seem to find that option.

    thanks,

    ray

    That is not an option. Never has been a Word option.

    You can AutoFormat existing text, but that is only a subset of the AutoCorrect feature and does not include anything that you added yourself nor error correction built into AutoCorrect.

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