Some WORD, autospell questions

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

Seems to me in the old WordPerfect days, there used to be a macro for reversing two letters (you know, so when I typed “oyu” I could place the cursor over the ‘y’, hit the macro, and it would then put it before the “o” and not after it). Is there an equivalent on WORD? Doesn’t seem that hard to program such a thing.

Bigger question has to do with Auto-spell—I love it that words I commonly misspell or mistype get corrected automatically as I type, but I’d like to add to my list of common messed-up words. I’m sure I can but what steps do I take to do this?

I’m using an older version of WORD, deliberately—I hate the look of the newer WORD, I can never find anything on WORD 2007, but I know where most things are on WORD 2003. Someone told me that 2003’s appearance can use some of the features on WORD 2007—does anyone have a clue what he was talking about?

[Saintly_Loser]

@pseudotriton_ruber_ruber

Seems to me in the old WordPerfect days, there used to be a macro for reversing two letters (you know, so when I typed “oyu” I could place the cursor over the ‘y’, hit the macro, and it would then put it before the “o” and not after it). Is there an equivalent on WORD? Doesn’t seem that hard to program such a thing.

Bigger question has to do with Auto-spell—I love it that words I commonly misspell or mistype get corrected automatically as I type, but I’d like to add to my list of common messed-up words. I’m sure I can but what steps do I take to do this?

I’m using an older version of WORD, deliberately—I hate the look of the newer WORD, I can never find anything on WORD 2007, but I know where most things are on WORD 2003. Someone told me that 2003’s appearance can use some of the features on WORD 2007—does anyone have a clue what he was talking about?

Not sure if MSWord has a macro like the WP macro you describe, but you could roll your own. You don’t even have to write it, really, just do it with the Record Macro tool.

As to the autospell thing, you can add words to the list. I don’t have MSWord on this computer, so I can’t check, but it might be under Tools, Spelling & Grammar, or auto-correct. It’s in there somewhere. I’ll check when I’m home and in front of a real computer, not this crappy little laptop.

[Tom_Tildrum]

Interesting. I use WordPerfect at work, and I’m not familiar with this.

[CookingWithGas]

@Saintly_Loser

Not sure if MSWord has a macro like the WP macro you describe, but you could roll your own. You don’t even have to write it, really, just do it with the Record Macro tool.

The operation described by the OP is known in the trade as a “twiddle.” This PDF documentincludes a description for how to create the macro. After you create the macro you can use the Tools, Customize command to add a button to a toolbar that will run the macro. Note that the text below explains how to do it using the macro recorder, and if you are familiar with VBA it shows how you can modify the macro code to be a little more efficient, but you don’t need to do the second part if you don’t want to.

Exercises: Create a macro called twiddle, to help you cure misspellings where two letters are transposed: e.g. psell for spell or rtansposed for transposed. Type a few words with a transposition error. Now put the cursor between two swapped letters, and record a macro as follows.

Choose Tools | Macros | Record new macro and name the macro
Assign a keypress: type Ctrl+T and then click Assign and Close
Remove a letter by selecting the first letter of the pair, hold down shift, press the left arrow and then choose Edit | Cut
Go right one space, and restore the letter by using Edit | Paste
Click the end recording button

Brave spirits may like to edit the recording: Tools | Macro | Macros | Edit. For example, using this code will allow the twiddle macro to still work, but without using the clipboard. Getting this sort of code depends a lot on reading the helpfiles!

 
Sub twiddle()

' twiddle Macro
' Macro recorded 31/10/01 by chris elliott
'
    Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend
    temptxt = Selection.Text
    Selection.Delete
    
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdMove
    Selection.InsertAfter (temptxt)
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdMove

End Sub

Let me just add that I just installed Office 2007 and no particularly useful features have been added to Word but the ability to customize menus and toolbars has been completely crippled. I am thinking of reverting back to Word 2003.

[LSLGuy]

Ref the poster just above: Word 2010 looks like 2007 and gains a lot of the “add your own stuff to the menus” features which 2007 lost. You don’t get to completely rearrange the menus & buttons, but you can add your own fairly easily.

Ref the OP: Adding things to Word 2003’s autocorrect is so easy you missed it.

Type something wrong then run spell check (F7 or Tools >> Spelling and Grammar …). When it flags the error, change the word to what you want it to be and click the [Autocorrect] button in the spell check dialog. That will both fix that instance of that word and add the correction to the autocorrect dictionary.

You can also modify the autocorrect dictionary directly. Tools >> AutoCorrect Options … will bring up a dialog where you can see the entire list of what it recognizes as typos and corrections. You can add, update, or delete any you want, as well as change a few other options.
FWIW, I’d not mess with a macro for this problem. That approach requires you to notice the error, put the cursor on it, and click the button or push the hotkey. Why not let HAL fix it as you type? About the only time I’d find a macro that useful was if there were two words I commonly used and often typed backwards, one for the other.

E.g. imagine that both “teh” and “the” were common English words and you often typed one for the other. Autocorrect would be no help in that case, and a macro would be useful to swap them as needed. But I’m not coming up with any real English examples of such a word pair differing only in a 2-letter swap.
ETA: correct massive typos. Sheesh.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I do in fact have an autocorrect entry for “teh” that converts it to “the”.

I wouldn’t use autocorrect for a two-letter swap. I’m constantly typing “beleive” instead of “believe.” I autocorrect the whole word, but trying to change just “ei” to “ie” would lead to choas, which I would autocorrect to chaos.

I transpose two letters a lot when I type so theoretically such a macro would be helpful. But if you have to position the cursor at the error and hit an ALT+ combo of some sort why not delete one letter, move a space and type the new one in? I suppose the answer is that’s three keystrokes instead of two and allows the possibility of a new error and some people simply like macros more than I do.

[LSLGuy]

I’m not suggesting autocorrect for , say, “ie” to “ei”.

I AM suggesting autocorrect for what you point out, “teh” becomes “the” or “beleive” becomes “believe”. And for “ot” becomes “to”, “trasnform” becomes “transform” etc.

The point was typos which consist of two-letter swaps embedded in specific larger words, not just two letter swaps as such.

[RadicalPi]

@LSLGuy

E.g. imagine that both “teh” and “the” were common English words and you often typed one for the other. Autocorrect would be no help in that case, and a macro would be useful to swap them as needed. But I’m not coming up with any real English examples of such a word pair differing only in a 2-letter swap.

I am constantly mistyping form and from, both of which I use constantly in my writing. YMMV.

[OldGuy]

@LSLGuy

E.g. imagine that both “teh” and “the” were common English words and you often typed one for the other. Autocorrect would be no help in that case, and a macro would be useful to swap them as needed. But I’m not coming up with any real English examples of such a word pair differing only in a 2-letter swap.

“Form” and “from.” I almost never use the former and have removed it as a correct word from my dictionary so it will automatically be flagged for me as it’s almost always a typo for from. I’ve not put it into auto-correct though as I do use it some and want to be able to type it.