Re: symbols
- From: Jim Gordon Mac MVP <goldkey74@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:50:24 -0500
Jim Gordon Mac MVP wrote:
glenno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:Jim: Brilliant, that does the trick! Thank you very much.
Even though it requires extra steps that aren't necessary in Word for
Windows, in the end it does the same job so this solves the problem. I
still hope the Symbols dialog can be fixed to work properly and simply
like it does in Word for Windows, though.
Meantime, it'd be great if the Tech Support folks were made aware of
this workaround. It'd save them and users a lot of time and energy.
(They had me moving all my fonts, returning them one at a time to the
font folders, downloading font fixing software, etc., all because they
had no clue that the Symbol dialog doesn't quite work in Word for Mac.
Oh well, good times.)
Actually, I was sort of hoping MacBU would simply kill the Insert >
Symbol dialog altogether. The MacOS Character Viewer and Keyboard Viewer
are so much nicer to use than what you see in Office for Windows. Take a
few minutes and explore the incredible number of options, Spotlight
search and other features of these two MacOS tools and you'll gain an
immediate appreciation of just how well designed these tools are.
In the next version of Office for Mac, VBA will return. It will be easy
to make an add-in that could automate the process of turning a selection
into an autotext with a keyboard shortcut.
-Jim
Also, I fiddled and came up with perhaps a more direct way to accomplish your goal. As you probably know, Word's AutoText replaces certain things you type without even using a keyboard shortcut. For example (c) is replaced by the copyright symbol by default.
You can take advantage of this feature and define your own character sequences for automatic replacement using AutoReplace instead of AutoText as discussed earlier.
You can define text strings that are to be automatically replaced by any special character. For example, you can have Word automatically replace (s) with a special character from the MacOS Character viewer. Here's how:
In Word, use Tools > AutoCorrect, which opens the AutoCorrect dialog box.
Make sure Automatically correct spelling is checked at the top of the box.
Make sure Replace Text as you Type is also checked.
In the Replace field, type the character string you want automatically replaced as you type. Since (s) has not been taken use (s) in this example.
Click into the With form field to position the insertion cursor there, but don't type anthing.
Go to the MacOS Character View or Keyboard viewer and insert a special character.
Switch back to Word and click the OK button to close the AutoCorrect dialog box.
In your document, type (s) and it should be replaced instantly with the special character.
Note that you can have as many of these text sequences as you want, as long as each is unique. This gives you an additional method to using keyboard shortcuts. AutoText and AutoReplace are among the most useful and powerful features of Mac Office.
-Jim
--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
Co-author of Office 2008 for Mac All-in-One For Dummies
http://tinyurl.com/Office-2008-for-Dummies
.
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