It’s a new year. The economy’s rebounding and, according to a recent survey, employee confidence is on the rise. Here are three software tips that will help you to become more productive and ride the momentum.

How to Create an AutoText Entry (Word 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007)

By David McQueary

Retyping long strings of text over and over can become tedious.

Say you are creating a Word document for your company, and you have to use the firm’s 30-character name countless times throughout. Retyping long strings of text over and over can become tedious. Use AutoText instead; it makes document creation much faster and much less repetitive.

Word 2000, 2002, 2003

1. Click on the Insert menu and select AutoText.
2. In AutoText you can create your own entry. Once you enter the company name click the Add button on the right.
3. Click OK.

Word 2007

1. Type the text in a blank document or highlight existing text in any document.
2. Click on the Insert tab, click on the Quick Parts drop-down arrow, and choose Save Selection to Quick Parts Gallery.

Now when you start typing, after the first three letters you can press tab/return and it will fill in the rest of the name automatically for you.

How to Use AutoText on a BlackBerry

By Joel Reeves

One of the ways you can make typing quicker on your BlackBerry is by using a feature called AutoText. All BlackBerrys come with a set of AutoText entries for commonly misspelled words, words with apostrophes, and words that require letters to be in a certain case.

To access the AutoText list on a BlackBerry, go to Options | AutoText. On this screen, you will see the predefined AutoText entries.

To add your own AutoText from this screen just display the menu and choose New. In the “Replace” section you would enter what phrase you would want to input on the device (i.e. TY). In the “With” section you would enter what words/phrase you want to be replaced with (i.e. Thank You).

With the “Using” field you will have two choices: Specified Case and SmartCase. The differences are as follows:

SmartCase – You let AutoText determine the capitalization based on how it is used in a sentence (e.g., “ty” would replace “thank you” in the middle of a sentence, and “Thank you” when used in the beginning of a sentence).

Specified Case – You want AutoText to replace your phrase with how you entered it when creating the AutoText entry (e.g., “ucla” will always return “UCLA”).

After you are done creating your entry, display the menu and choose Save.

How to Have Your Device Suggest Words When You Type
(Windows Mobile 5, 6)

By Edwin Soto

Typing large amounts of text on a handheld device can be a real drag. To speed up this task, you can have your device suggest words based on what you are already typing. Follow these steps:

1. Click Start, go to Settings, select the Personal Tab, and then choose Input.
2. On the Word Completion Tab, place a check in the “Suggest Word When Entering Text” option.
3. In the “Suggest after entering letters” drop-down list, you can choose from one to seven letters.
4. In the “Suggest Words” drop-down list, you can choose from one to four words.
5. Check the “Replace Text As You Type” option if you want it to automatically correct common misspellings. (This option is called “Enable Auto Correct” on Windows Mobile 6 Devices.)
6. Click OK to accept your changes.

Now when you enter text into your device, you will have a list of choices to speed the process.

Have any priceless productivity tips to share? Send us an e-mail or post a comment.

MORE INFO IN: Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

Jenny Sweeney Time-Saving Tips, Worker Productivity autotext, BlackBerry, recession, Windows Mobile