You know what I’m talking about: the feature that diligently switches your hastily typed “teh” to “the.” Hijacking autocorrect is a trick I learned when I was a technical writer. The official name of most products is ridiculously long. the common name for a program might be WriterTool, but the full name is Software.com’s WriterTool Pro 2009 for Windows. You don’t want to have to type that twice. So you add an autocorrect entry to your word processor of choice that corrects the letters “swt” to the full product name. Viola, you’ve just increased your productivity and saved yourself some typing. The same technique can be used to make it easier to type long character names. In a short story I’m working on now, “psq” becomes “Pasquale” whenever I need to type the main character’s name.

Here’s how to do it. Steps provided are for Microsoft Word, but other word processors are similar. For example, in WordPerfect, the feature is called “QuickCorrect.”

Word 2003

• Select Tools > Autocorrect Options.
• Click the Autocorrect tab.

Word 2007

• Click the Office button.
• Click the Word Options button.
• In the left pane, click Proofing.
• Click the Autocorrect Options button.
• Click the Autocorrect tab.*

Then…

• In the Replace box, enter an easily typed two or three letter abbreviation for your unfortunately-named character.
• In the With field, enter the character’s full name as you’d like it to appear.
• Click Add.

After you close the dialog, type the three-letter abbreviation you entered in the Replace box. When you hit the space bar or type any punctuation mark, the abbreviation will be replaced with the character’s full name. Now isn’t that easier?

My motto is, “Higher productivity through laziness.” Happy writing, and join us next time on “The Lazy Writer” when… Oh, who am I kidding? If there’s a second Lazy Writer post, I’ll be surprised.
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*As you can see, Microsoft’s claim that Word 2007 is more efficient than previous versions is correct…  If by “more efficient,” you mean, “it takes twice as many steps to accomplish the same thing.”

But did I mention that sometimes it baffles me? Here’s an example: How do you set application options in Word? If you answered Tools > Options, well, you’re only partially right. Because for some things, you need to select Tools > Customize, and then click the Options tab.

Yeah, that makes sense.

When I’m editing my novel, I often want to mark the spot where I leave off at the end of a session. That way, I can easily return to that location during my next editing session without having to scroll around–because I am THAT lazy. Word’s Bookmark feature helps, but still requires a lot of work. I have to go through the hassle of inserting the bookmark and deleting it when I’m done with it–not to mention all the steps necessary to jump to it. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

Better productivity through laziness, that’s my motto. I created a Word macro that:

• Checks to see if there’s already a “StartHere” bookmark in the document.
• If there is, jumps to its location in the document and then deletes it.
• If not, inserts one at the current cursor location.

Here’s the code:

Sub StartPoint()

Dim i As Integer

If ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Count > 0 Then
 For i = 1 To ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Count
  If ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(i).Name = "StartPoint" Then
   Selection.GoTo What:=wdGoToBookmark, Name:="StartPoint"
   Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
   ActiveDocument.Bookmarks(i).Delete
   Exit Sub
  End If
 Next
End If

ActiveDocument.Bookmarks.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Name:="StartPoint"

End Sub

I assigned a keystroke combination to the macro and also put a button for it on the Standard toolbar so that I can invoke it whether my hands are on the keyboard or I’m using the mouse.

Want to use this macro yourself? Here’s how:

1. Select all the code above between (but not including) Sub StartPoint() and End Sub. Copy it to the clipboard.
2. Fire up Word if it isn’t already started.
3. Select Tools > Macros. The Macros dialog displays.
4. Under Macro name, type StartPoint.
5. Click Create. The Microsoft Visual Basic window displays. The cursor is above End Sub.
6. Paste the clipboard contents into the window.

When you are done, close the window.Next, you’ll need some way to invoke the macro. This can be a keyboard shortcut, a menu item, or a toolbar button–or you can go for broke and create all three.

To assign a keyboard shortcut:

1. Select Tools > Options.
2. Select the Commands tab.
3. Click Keyboard… The Customize keyboard dialog displays.
4. In the Categories pane (left side), scroll down to Macros and select it.
5. In the Macros pane (right side), select StartPoint.
6. Click to place the cursor in Press new shortcut key.
7. Press the shortcut key combination that you want to use. I use Alt + M. Text will appear telling you if the combination is currently assigned to another command.
8. When you are satisfied with your selection, click Assign and then click Close.

To add a menu item or a toolbar button:

1. Select Tools > Options.
2. Select the Commands tab.
3. In the Categories pane, scroll down to Macros and select it. The macro is shown in the Commands pane on the right.
4. Select the macro on the right and drag it to the toolbar or menu location where you want to place the command. Customize the button image if you want to.
5. Click Close.

Viola! Your new command is ready to use. Have fun.